Facts be damned, there is a narrative to follow.
Ex-New York Times editor Jill Abramson was right when she said this week that a certain newsroom has a serious narcissism problem.
She should have taken her criticism a step further, though, because the problem is industry-wide.
A Maryland newspaper suffered a tragedy this week when a deranged gunman stormed its offices, killing four journalists and a sales assistant. The Capital Gazette leadership responded courageously, refusing to allow even this awful event to slow them in their duties. They published a newspaper the very next day, covering a shooting that happened in their own newsroom.
That is noble.
What is not so noble are the self-centered journalists and pundits from elsewhere who piggybacked off this awful event to do what they love doing the best: making the story about themselves. Some seized on the shooting to go after their preferred political targets, while others used it as an opportunity to push back on perfectly legitimate criticisms of the media.
“The President of the United States has demonized the media, promoted and retweeted violent memes against reporters and networks and this week at a rally again called us the enemy of the people,” said BuzzFeed News’ Jason Leopold. “He did this with complete and total disregard for how his actions could play out.”
He added, “Words matter. This climate is not OK. The president’s incendiary rhetoric against the media is abhorrent.”
Putting aside for a moment the fact that he seems to believe that words are violence, it’s worth pausing here to stress that the shooter is not in any way connected to or motivated by President Trump or right-wing politics. In fact, the shooter had a long-running grudge against the Gazette dating back to at least 2012, when he sued it for defamation over its coverage of his alleged cyberstalking.