Late Tuesday, the leftist narrative about early Sunday’s shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub crumbled as the suspect’s lawyer revealed their client is nonbinary, blowing holes in the narrative that Christian conservatives and Fox News caused the attack. Of course, NBC promptly dropped any mention of the massacre on Wednesday’s Today while ABC’s Good Morning America omitted this inconvenient truth.
NBC did, however, find time for stories it deemed more important, such as a 25-second news brief on the Supreme Court clearing the way for a House committee to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns.
On ABC, co-host George Stephanopoulos promised “[n]ew details in the Colorado shooting investigation” and a “chilling Facebook post from the shooter’s mother,” but his network sure left out the crucial fact that the alleged gunman committed a hate crime....against their own people?
After co-host Robin Roberts similarly failed, chief national correspondent Matt Gutman even occasionally used the suspect’s preferred pronouns of they/them (click “expand”):
This will be the suspect's first appearance in court in which they're read their charges for the first time and that as we learn of this chilling Facebook post made by the suspect's mother just hours before the shooting in which she says her son went missing. He took her phone and her debit card and cryptically promised, “the best night ever.” Overnight, ABC News obtaining this chilling Facebook post from Laurel Voepel, the mother of the Colorado Springs massacre suspect seemingly concerned about her son's whereabouts in the hours before the shooting, saying, “my son is missing...He took MY PHONE and debit card. We had plans and were so excited.” She ends by saying her son told her, “To get ready for the best night” The 22-year-old suspect now facing preliminary charges for the first degree of Ashley Paugh, Daniel Aston, dance as continue, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, and Derrick Rump. Ring footage from 2021 shows the suspect surrendering to police after allegedly making a bomb threat against his own mother.
(....)
But that case later dismissed and the suspect’s record sealed after the family refused to press charges. That enabled the suspect to legally purchase that AR-style rifle.
At the end of his report, Gutman still peddled the false narrative, vaguely referring to “a think tank that monitors hate speech online report[ing] a shocking 613 percent rise in hate speech targeting the LGBTQ community...parroted by politicians and influencers online” amid concern “this could spur even more violence.”
A member of the community herself, Roberts fretted there’s “a lot of concern about that.”
In contrast, ABC’s lowly overnight shows World News Now and America This Morning had a combined three minutes and 47 seconds with co-host Andrew Dymburt highlighting the suspect’s gender identity.
Dymburt didn’t let the narrative go too far as he lamented they were bullied and have a grandfather who, as a former member of the California General Assembly, “once compared the January 6th riots to the American Revolution and has voted against LGBTQ legislation.”
Similarly, NBC’s Early Today mentioned the gender as co-host Philip Mena said the suspect “is nonbinary and uses they-them pronouns.” Mena still tied blamed opposition to the LGBTQ lifestyle as he touted a GLADD report claiming “there were 124 incidents in 47 states” of “protests, threats, and attacks against drag events.”
CBS went in the opposite direction and kept their viewers informed with both the early-morning show CBS Morning News and the flagship CBS Mornings spotlighting this change (albeit minus an apology for past coverage).
The latter dedicated the first minute of the two-minute-and-30-second segment to the suspect. Co-host Nate Burleson cut to the chase:
Turning now to that deadly Colorado nightclub shooting. The suspect will appear in court by video for the first time today. Five people were killed in Saturday's massacre, and nearly 20 injured. The alleged shooter's attorneys say their client identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.
Correspondent Janet Shamlian even tipped her hand to this busted narrative by saying from the scene that “now we may know why” there’s “been few details about the suspect.”
Shamlian continued, using the suspect’s name and preferred pronouns:
As court records indicate, they did not grow up as Anderson Lee Aldrich, following a very tumultuous past. The person suspected of killing five people inside Club Q was born with the name Nicholas Brink. Court records show at 15, they petitioned to change the name to Anderson Lee Aldrich, stating they didn't want to be connected to their father who had a criminal history. The change happened months after they were allegedly viciously bullied online. The suspect's past coming into focus as we learn more about what happened inside Club Q Saturday night.
ABC refusing to tell their viewers about a narrative-bursting detail in this was brought to you by Apple and NBC’s bias by omission was brought to you by Fidelity. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcripts from November 23, click here (for ABC World News Now), here (for ABC’s America This Morning), here (for ABC’s Good Morning America), here (for CBS Morning News), here (for CBS Mornings), and here (for NBC’s Early Today).
