The Wall Street Journal is being widely criticized for running a poorly sourced report, that was almost immediately debunked and ultimately proven false, that attempted to connect transgender people to Charlie Kirk’s murder.
On Thursday, the WSJ reported that an unnamed “source” from inside the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) told them that bullets with inscriptions pertaining to unspecified “transgender ideology” had been linked to the shooting. The false report appears to have started with right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder, who posted a purported ATF memo with the claim.
Within an hour the New York Times, citing multiple AFT sources, reported that these claims were likely not true. Nevertheless, these false claims contributed to already increasingly violent rhetoric from right wing figures, including President Donald Trump, who were asserting without evidence that Kirk’s killer was from the political left.
But on Friday, Kirk’s killer was identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old white Mormon man unregistered to any political party, whose parents are both active Republicans.
And while Robinson’s motives aren’t yet known — or, at least, public — his social media activity suggests affinity for the far right internet-based “Groyper” movement. More to the point, the engravings on the bullet casings were references to video games and internet memes that happen to be popular with the Groyper movement.
They were: “Notices bulges OWO What’s this?” which makes fun of so-called “furries”; “Hey fascist! Catch!” followed by an arrow pointing up, one pointing right, and three pointing down, a reference to the video game “Helldivers”; lyrics to an Italian song called “Bella Ciao,” which is in Europe an anti-fascist song but is known in America for its ironic use in a popular video game; and “If you read this, you are gay. LMAO.”
WSJ posted one Editor’s Note on Thursday after the original story went live. where the ATF “urged caution” around reports of the transgender engravings. The added a follow up Editor’s Note Friday after the Utah Governor’s press conference.
“An earlier version of this article detailed how an internal law enforcement bulletin said that ammunition recovered following the Charlie Kirk shooting was engraved with expressions of ‘transgender and anti-fascist ideology,’” the note read. “Justice Department officials later urged caution about the bulletin by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, saying it may not accurately reflect the messages on the ammunition, and the article was updated Thursday to reflect that. This editor’s note was appended on Friday, Sept. 12, after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said the engravings included one that said ‘Hey fascist!’ along with other messages and symbols. He gave no indication that the ammunition included any transgender references.”
This led to an online uproar for how the WSJ handled the story and helped spread the misinformation.
