In the early morning hours of January 1, a man rammed his truck into a crowd in New Orleans. He also shot and killed people, with the death toll now at 15. Many more were injured. The suspect, who was killed by police, has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, who was born and raised in Texas and served in the U.S. Army. The situation has already been mishandled in numerous ways, including the confusing press conference from law enforcement regarding whether the violent attack was even being treated as an act of terrorism.
President Joe Biden, who is still in office for close to three more weeks, didn't weigh in until hours later on Wednesday morning and gave pathetically brief remarks on Wednesday night, without taking any questions.
Then there are the media outlets. The Associated Press, as we've covered before when it comes to covering up for the Biden-Harris administration, has been among the worst with its coverage of the attack. The outlet put out a breaking news alert early Wednesday morning indicating that "10 people were killed and 30 injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street."
Who was it that made the "vehicle drive into a crowd," though? It certainly makes it sound like the vehicle drove itself. Even though the suspect wasn't named at the time, there's still a way to properly report the incident to not make it sound like the truck drove itself.
Even more odd is that the outlet managed to correctly report hours earlier that it was a "driver" who was responsible for the death of two New Zealand police officers, killing one of them.
There have been more than 400 replies to the breaking news update above, many of them taking issue with the headline.
The posts from the AP didn't get much better from there. "Suspect in New Orleans crash and shooting is dead after firefight with police, law enforcement officials tell AP," another breaking news update from Wednesday morning read.
To frame it as a "crash," rather than how the suspect deliberately rammed his truck as a weapon, makes it sound like it could have been an accident. The situation, including the many killed or injured, also comes off as downplayed.
That post also earned more than 400 replies.
Although a post from Wednesday afternoon acknowledged that there was actually "a driver" involved, the AP still went with "crashes" language, making it once more sound potentially like an accident rather than a terrorist attack.
If you do a Google search on "truck rammed," currently the first result is from the AP, "What we know about a vehicle attack on pedestrians in New Orleans that killed at least 15." It's yet another headline that leaves out mention of the suspect who drove the vehicle to kill those pedestrians and injure many more. That headline is from Thursday morning, more than 24 hours after the attack.
If you search "truck crashed" on Google, the summary also leaves out that a driver was involved. "New Orleans truck attack kills at least 15," it reads.
Top results include a USA Today piece from Wednesday, which had six authors, and whose headline claimed, "15 killed and about 30 injured as truck crashed into New Orleans NYE crowd." The article was picked up by AOL, with that headline also being included in the Google search's top results.
Another top result linked to the Hindustan Times' headline states, "At least 10 dead after truck crashes into New Orleans crowd, city agency says," which is actually from Reuters.
Reuters, in particular, focused on a "truck attack," with headlines from Wednesday such as "What we know so far about the New Orleans truck attack victims" and "New Orleans truck attack adds to growing list of similar incidents."
The paper edition of the Washington Post for Thursday has been gaining plenty of attention for its headline, "Truck rams New Orleans crowd."
The Washington Post was also among those outlets that went with the Associated Press headline from Wednesday night, "New Orleans New Year's Day ramming is the latest attack to use a vehicle as a deadly weapon." But again, who did the "ramming"? Did the truck ram itself into the crowd? The subheadline is better, "Authorities say a man who drove a pickup truck at high speed into a crowd of people celebrating the new year in New Orleans was hell-bent on creating carnage," but that's information that ought to have been in the headline.
Sadly, such language is nothing new. Late last month, this turned out to be the case regarding media coverage of a driver who also rammed his vehicle into a Christmas market in Germany.
