On Sunday morning, I got a call from a family member checking in to see how I was doing after attending the eventful White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last night. They asked what happened, and was I feeling shaken?
They also had another question: Having been there, did I think it was staged?
That uncertainty about what really happened — fueled, my family member said, by seeing numerous viral posts on X — was clearly shared and stoked by many people in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting. Wired reported that the word “staged” exploded on social media immediately after the incident. On Sunday, outgoing Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett said of the shooting: “Maybe it’s fake… who knows.”
Distrust in legacy media and the rise of unregulated social media have helped make conspiracy theories a routine feature of the discussion about major public incidents. The early chaos of any crisis, reported in real time, doesn’t help either, as we saw in the initial moments when attendees misreported the shooter’s death. And it’s hard to argue with media critics who predict that journalists will find a way to make the shooting about themselves, particularly on a night already tilted toward congratulating ourselves on the importance of the work we all do.
But that cynicism felt divorced from what I actually saw Saturday night from my seat at table 17 in the middle of the Capital Hilton’s basement ballroom. Like us at Semafor and every other news outlet, NBC News reporters and editors seated next to our table quickly hatched coverage plans and started making calls within seconds of the shooting. The Washington Post’s table nearby was abandoned as the paper’s journalists left their wine and half-finished salads to go report out the story. Largely, what I saw across the room was professionals trying to do their job: gathering and sharing accurate information.
We’ll learn more about the shooting in the coming days; various actors with various agendas will try to manipulate or deny the facts for their own gain. Those views will resonate with some number of people convinced we’re not getting the real story.
I’ll do my best to stay focused on that detailed reporting — and hope that amid the cynicism and engagement-baiting, people will take seriously the earnest, old-fashioned effort of journalism.