Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
The media has raised the curiosity bar, and the new measure is Luigi Mangione, the accused assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Legacy media has shown a rare burst of old-fashioned reporting chops, digging deep into the life of Luigi Mangione, 26, who grew up in an $800,000 Towson, Maryland, home, had a wealthy real estate mogul grandfather, and suffered from back pain made worse after he went surfing in Hawaii and again when he slipped on a piece of paper, according to an ABC News report. Mangione was the 2016 valedictorian at the Gilman School in Baltimore, a private boys’ school with current tuition of nearly $38,000. The details are plentiful and the digging continues.
Rich kids are fascinating. Murder is fascinating. Manhunts are fascinating. Check, check, check. It’s like catnip to readers. And bonus, Luigi Mangione is, well of course we can’t say it, but folks have noticed: he happens to be good looking. And something about health insurance? His platform is not super clear. But health insurance is important, and way too expensive. The all-knowing media can fill in the gaps on that issue.
Mentally unstable media pieces popped up, like The Atlantic’s “This Is How Political Violence Goes Mainstream: The UnitedHealthcare shooting marks a new moment of normie extremism,” which describes Mangione as an average guy and argues, “The killing demonstrates how mainstream political violence is becoming.” Business Insider published a sympathetic, 1,500-word background on his life that talks about how he once started a book club, and how, friends say, even if he is found guilty, Mangione is a nice guy and they would be comfortable alone in a room with him.
You’ll need mouthwash if you read this headline from The Guardian out loud: “Luigi Mangione is the median American voter: He’s a highly educated, heterodox, politically homeless moderate – and that fact should terrify us all.”
Yuck. The media is building a mystique around an alleged murderer because he meets the magic media formula for a good story.
What is a good story? One that is easy to write, guaranteed to get clicks, and will distract readers from important news that might affect their lives. It is a story that promises to make you look here, not there.
With the media’s new bar, the importance of all shootings could be measured on a scale from Thomas Crooks (Forget this happened) to Luigi Mangione (Made-for-TV movie potential).
Who is Thomas Crooks? He should be a household name, but legacy media was not so interested in him. Crooks was the rooftop sniper who shot Donald Trump in the head at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13. Crooks killed attendee Corey Comperatore and injured several others before he was shot and killed by the Secret Service on the scene. If not for a divinely timed turn of the head, Trump might have been killed.
Why is the media disinterested in the motive behind the attempted assassination of a then-presidential candidate and now president-elect? Should we have a national conversation about what happened there? Nah. That boy was probably just touched in the head. That’s all you need to know. Move on folks, nothing to see here.
The Washington Post and CNN had July 15 stories about Trump’s classified documents case being dismissed. The same day, NPR had a story on the Republican convention with a brief mention of the assassination attempt.
The shooting shocked Democrats and Republicans alike. The public was hungry for details. But legacy media shamefully quit that story cold turkey within days. In less than a week, the news was focused on the Republican convention and downplaying the shooting. They sure weren’t trying to understand Crooks.
It was more important not to make Trump look like a sympathetic victim so close to the election.
Obviously, Ryan Routh scores low on the Crooks-Mangione scale: Broke financially, a robust criminal history, and only handsome at certain angles with a soft camera filter. Also, he didn’t kill anyone. But he could have changed the course of world history.
Routh, 58, allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump Sept. 15, by hiding in the bushes at International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida and pointing his gun through the fence where Trump was golfing. He was arrested before harming anyone.
Again, the media moved on quickly, not even vaguely curious about his motive.
Media has spoken to Mangione’s classmates and acquaintances. We know his family pedigree and his education background. But we have yet to get Mangione-level reporting on Crooks or Routh. Despite a congressional investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump, there is still much we don’t know about Crooks and Routh.
News media writes the first copy of history, but because legacy media hates Trump so much, they did not dig deep enough to tell the story of why two people tried to kill Trump on the campaign trail. That failure is like tearing important pages out of tomorrow’s history books.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.