Thank you for setting the record straight. So sorry.
No problem : ),
It happens a lot just after something like this happens. And unfortunately there are people on the internet; on Twitter, FB, YouTube and on the boards like 4chan or 8chan that either punk people because they think it’s fun or funny or that others see it and forward to others believing it is true and gospel without doing any fact checking on their own.
I recall just after the Las Vegas shooting, that some guy was “identified” as being the shooter and was linked to being Anti-Trump because of a picture of someone who looked like him at an Anti-Trump rally and having a name that was similar to the shooter’s wife’s ex. It turned out that the guy wasn’t related or involved in any way but that didn’t stop the internet sleuths from posting personal info on him and likely making his life a living hell and probably some people still think he was involved.
Within minutes after the Boston Marathon bombing, a picture of someone was circulating all over the web and here too, identifying him as the bomber because he looked “middle eastern”, but he was just a spectator and was not involved in anyway.
And after that guy (Robert Lewis Dear, Jr.) in Colorado shot up a shopping center and specifically targeted a Planned Parenthood, I think it was Sundance at Conservative Tree House who was insisting for several days that the shooting was nowhere near the PP and that it was a bank robbery gone wrong and it was posted here as being “fact” until it was proven otherwise.
I just think we should be careful to vette and question the validity of any and all sources of info, including that of the MSM, especially in the first 24-48 hours after something like this happens.
Part of it IMO is the lightning speed of initial reports and the 24-7 news cycle with cable and the internet all competing for attention and which are initially often wrong or incomplete.
I’m just old enough at age 57 to remember when, while some major news stories might have made for a breaking news bulletin on TV or the radio, most stories, we didn’t learn about until the next day’s newspaper or evening news report, when actual reporters had time to work on getting the real story and vetting their sources and had to undergo fact checking, although not always enough even then. But now days it is all about the rush to report in real time and get the scoop and it is often pure speculation or based on rumors. Updates and corrections are sometimes made but are often ignored if it doesn’t fit the narrative. And Left and Right are equally guilty of this IMO.