FRC Shooter Used SPLC 'Hate Group' Map, Which CNN Also Promoted

February 6th, 2013 5:25 PM

After a man shot a security guard at the Family Research Council (FRC) last summer, the organization claimed it was targeted because the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed it as a "hate group."

The shooter has now revealed that he indeed used that SPLC map to find his target. And CNN has not only promoted this list of "hate groups" in the past, but after the shooting it re-affirmed the FRC's place on the list as "hate spewing hate."

As Paul Bedard of The Washington Examiner reported, the shooter "told the FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went to the law center's website for ideas."

Only 20 hours after the shooting, CNN cited a 13 year-old FRC pamphlet to support the SPLC's label of them as a "hate group." Anchor Zoraida Sambolin passionately insisted: "But it is spewing hate, isn't it? It is spewing hate. So it's hate spewing hate."

Four days after that, anchor Randi Kaye used the SPLC map to report on "hate groups" in the U.S., still treating it as a credible source.