The Press Hijacks Florida Shooting Coverage to Attack DeSantis

FILE – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center and his wife Casey, right, bow their heads during a prayer at a vigil for the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

A racist shooter opened fire in a Jacksonville Dollar General over the weekend, murdering three African Americans: Angela Michelle Carr, A.J. Laguerre, and Jerrald Gallion.

Writings recovered from the culprit’s computer revealed that his actions were motivated by a hatred of Black people. The victims’ fates and the ideas that led to them make for a sobering, heart-wrenching story that calls for reverence of the dead and clear-minded reflection.

And yet because it occurred in Florida, some in the press are instead taking it as an opportunity to put political points on the board against Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

At the Associated Press, Steve Peoples and Brendan Farrington opened a Tuesday morning news story with the lede “Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use ‘extreme care’ if traveling to Florida,” before remarking that “Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African Americans dead.”

The NAACP issued its advisory in response to Florida’s education reforms, asserting that “Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

Further down in the article, the two reporters quoted one pastor, two Democratic lawmakers, and the NAACP President, all of whom implied a connection between the tragedy and DeSantis, but none of whom were able to draw a specific one.

“He refuses to call that man [the shooter] a racist. He calls him a scumbag,” declared one state representative amplified by the AP. “He’s tiptoeing around the true issue because he’s worried that his poll numbers will drop with the base of voters that he has religiously went after.”

What goes unmentioned: DeSantis specifically declared that he was “not going to allow” the state’s historically Black colleges and universities “to be targets for hateful lunatics.”

Put aside the debates there are to be had about the curriculum updates or other reforms supported by DeSantis in the Sunshine State for a moment. Even if you hold the view that it’s ill-conceived — or even ill-intentioned — is there any evidence whatsoever to suggest that its existence is what compelled this deranged gunmen to commit this act of unfathomable evil? Is there any evidence that anything Ron DeSantis has ever said or done inspired him?

Of course not, which is why Peoples and Farrington rely on an logical leap that could clear the Grand Canyon instead of hard evidence.

They’re not the only ones to follow such a dishonorable course.

At NBC, senior politics reporter Matt Dixon attacked DeSantis from a similar angle. “Ron DeSantis’ policies toward the Black community are coming under fresh scrutiny after an avowed racist gunman killed three Black people over the weekend at a Jacksonville Dollar General store, an attack the Justice Department is investigating as a hate crime,” wrote Dixon, who quoted a few of the same DeSantis critics used by the AP.

And at the White House on Monday, NPR’s Franco Ordoñez risibly asked Biden advisor Stephen Benjamin if there was “any connection” between “the changes that the Florida governor has made in teaching about African American history to the kind of violence that we saw in Jacksonville?”

Benjamin tried to both capitalize and hedge in his response to the leading question.

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that — that trying to rewrite American history is not only wrong but it also encourages our children and those among us not to lean in to the — to the beautiful and also painful past of what our history looks like and encouraging people to move forward together,” he replied.

It’s increasingly taken for granted that all’s fair in politics as well as love and war. But shouldn’t the media draw the line at, rather than encourage this wicked instinct?

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.