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| Blood is on Trump’s ear and face in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. (Evan Vucci/AP) |
The press has been the target of both vile attacks and legitimate criticism due to its coverage of the different moments, with different levels of certainty, surrounding the episode of an attack against the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, once again his rival. successor, Joe Biden, in the 2024 race.
In responsible journalism, real-time coverage of any series of events requires precautions that depend on subsequent confirmation of factual elements. Assessing, in light of this subsequent confirmation, the degree of certainty or uncertainty of each of these elements configures one or more of the three basic options:
Inability to conceive hypotheses not previously ruled out, lack of the necessary set of evidence to conclude that something occurred in one way and not another, and intellectual dishonesty, whether due to political-ideological militancy or affectation of superiority.
The first images released on social media and American TV stations that reached Brazilian newsrooms late on Saturday night showed Trump being escorted off the stage by security guards, which triggered a quick search for previous images until obtaining the video of the interrupted speech by the sounds of gunshots.
In this video from the front of the stage, no weapons, ammunition, shooters or clear evidence that Trump was hit, even a graze, or any other victim are visible. The sounds of gunshots led to preventive action by security personnel, but did not provide evidence, from a journalistic point of view, that shots were fired at or near the event, much less aimed at the former president with the intention of killing him. As distasteful as it may seem to right-wing activists and influencers, the information available until local authorities confirm anything was of sounds similar to gunshots that led to Trump's withdrawal.
What there was absolutely no, however, was any basis for reporting that “Trump falls off the stage”, as a Brazilian newspaper did, provoking legitimate criticism on social media, particularly fueled by a preconceived perception of selective alarmism by the media, which only sees threats coming from the right and not against their leaders.
The image of blood on Trump's ear began to circulate at that moment, with authorities still not confirming that the wound resulted from a grazing gunshot. The cause and effect relationship between weapons (not yet visible) and audible shots, or between unconfirmed shots and blood, was not independently verifiable, but presumed, which, in journalistic coverage, is not omitted, it is only treated with due caution until conclusive evidence or confirmation by a competent authority, removing terms such as “alleged” and other crutches from coverage titles, at least in vehicles that are not interested in distorting the situation.
This is what happened in several cases:
Trump was slightly injured in the ear by a gunshot, but is safe; the shooter is dead, an audience member was killed, and another person is in critical condition.
The information was corroborated by a Secret Service spokesperson.
Only later did images circulate of a person being carried into the audience; a Trump supporter speaking on American TV claiming to have seen the shooter climb onto a nearby roof and alert the police; two “snipers” on another roof reacting to the sniper's shots; the shooter himself dead next to his AR model gun and until the moment he fired, not to mention the photo that captured the movement of the projectile near the former president's ear.
In the early hours of the morning, after the name was leaked by the New York Post, the FBI confirmed the shooter's identity and said it considered Thomas Crooks' act an attempt to assassinate Trump, although the motives were unknown.
Faced with such evidence, not even the most hesitant or militant outlets failed to report cause and effect relationships, so that disinformation was restricted to conspiracy theorists André Janones, a Brazilian federal deputy caught on audio advocating “rachadinha (theft of money) of employees from his office” and relieved in the Chamber's Ethics Committee thanks to Guilherme Boulos, federal deputy for São Paulo and candidate for mayor of the richest city in Brazil.
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| Twitter image: of Brazilian Congressman André Janones, supporter of President Lula. |
The New York Times and Washington Post were also criticized for closing their Sunday, August 14 print editions with generic headlines: “Trump Injured But Safe After Shooting Incident - Suspected Shooter and Rally Spectator Killed”; “Trump injured in shooting - POSSIBLE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT - Shooter and one other person dead; former president is 'fine'”. The exact moment of closure on Saturday night is unknown, but there is valid criticism of the use of the term “shooting” in the title, despite the WP's subtitle, which dilutes the shooter's responsibility for the crime amid an exchange of gunfire, followed by cool response from the “snipers”.The media's selective sensationalism, before the attack, compromises the necessary journalistic prudence in live coverage of complex events, placing it alongside reprehensible behavior and opening the way for malicious opportunistic attacks.
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