In covering political violence and homicides, the media keeps missing one of its most important responsibilities. Today, Josh explains how an obsession with politics has been poisoning not only the coverage of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing, but also the killing of a young woman on light rail in North Carolina.

It boils down to a key question of whether we’re going to move forward as a society or not. To help you understand this, Josh looks at the attempted assassination of author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., and a problematic line journalists use when discussing violence and mental health.

Also, an American news network fired an analyst following Kirk’s death. In context, his remarks seem different from what made the rounds on social media. But the incident raises a larger question about how the news handles early reports of gunfire.

Plus the BBC runs cover for a student leader who celebrated Kirk’s assassination, stars preach hatred at the Emmys, and the leading study on political violence in America shows how antisemitism fuels it on both ends of the political spectrum. 

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