Spin Control: Tempted to jump to conclusions on big stories? Don’t

One of the hardest things for journalists to learn when confronting a devastating event – huge wildfire, a mass casualty shooting – is to be extremely cautious about the early reports.

Like many reporters, I learned it the hard way, early in my career. Just three months out of college in 1975, I covered an explosion at a grain elevator in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the earliest suspicion from the scene while firefighters rescued trapped workers was that a bomb had gone off. A big enough bomb to have knocked the concrete tops of all the silos askew.

When I called back to the newsroom to dictate a report, however, the newspaper’s agricultural editor – in those days, even a small paper in farm country would have one – cautioned against jumping to such a conclusion. First, he said, grain dust is highly combustible in a closed space like a grain elevator. Second, he added, who would bomb a grain elevator?

We went with “cause is under investigation” for the first edition, and by the final edition the farm editor’s theory was confirmed. A spark had ignited grain dust, despite the various safety devices present to prevent that.

In the heat of a breaking story, being cautious and triple checking is hard for even experienced journalists to follow. Returning from covering the 1987 Hangman Hills wildfire, I heard editors discussing the number of houses burned in the subdivision. They were deciding to use the latest official report from the Sheriff’s Office, which was 18. “But it’s actually” – I started to tell the assistant city editor who was preparing to send the story to the back shop.

He looked up at me, said something not really printable here that amounted to “don’t bother me until I file this story.” Later he came back to my desk where I was writing up my notes and asked what I knew about the fire. There were 23 houses that burned to the ground, I said.

How did I know? he demanded. Because the photo editor and I had counted them when we drove through the subdivision a half hour ago with the head of Emergency Services, I said. An updated report, quoting that official, was released a short time later.

Because of those and other similar experiences over the years, I am always skeptical of anything that initially shows up on websites or social media, where people sometimes offer news and views but without the guardrails of double or triple-checking facts. Last weekend in the wake of the shootings of two Minnesota legislators and their spouses proved to be a good example.

Two dead, two critically wounded and a gunman on the loose. It’s the stuff of high ratings and clickbait heaven. Once the name of suspect Vance Boelter was released, people started digging and tended to latch onto any tidbit they could find, particularly if it coincided with their particular political views.

A conservative website noted that Boelter had been appointed to a state advisory board by Gov. Tim Walz. Fairly quickly in conservative media circles, Boelter became a Democrat and even morphed into being a “Marxist” in a posting by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that was later deleted. The two legislators were supposedly targeted because they had broken with other Democrats on a budget vote.

The Washington State Republican Party, on its X account, reposted a report from Amuse on X, which describes itself as “Conservative Headlines and Articles” but notes that some of its postings are satire. In it, with no satire warning, Boelter was described as a “Democratic activist” who had worked with Walz. His car, when captured, was “filled with No Kings flyers” which Amuse described in another post as “a dog whistle for Antifa and far-left violence.”

In fact, the “No Kings” protests against the Trump administration were planned as a nonviolent demonstration that urged participants to de-escalate any potential conflicts or lawlessness. Antifa is a separate, decentralized organization that does sometimes clash with conservative groups and law enforcement, and even with other Antifa groups.

Later checking showed Boelter had been originally appointed to the Workforce Development Board, where the positions are nonpartisan, by Walz’s predecessor and reappointed to a second three-year term by Walz. He was one of the representatives of the business sector, which suggests he wasn’t much of a Marxist.

According to reports in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and the Associated Press, he had owned a private security firm with his wife, was an evangelical pastor of a small congregation he started, was strongly opposed to abortion, had previously registered as a Republican, and, according to a roommate, supported President Donald Trump.

The Amuse on X postings remained on the state GOP X site as of Friday, although the events of the last week, including the parade in Washington, D.C., protests around the country and updates on immigration enforcement have driven it fairly far down.

It’s fair to say we don’t know – and may not know for some time, if ever – what motivated Boelter to do what he did. According to the latest accounts, he was a desperate man in a rubber mask with a car full of firearms and a hit list of public officials.

I know lots of Democrats and Republicans. He doesn’t sound like any of them.