Kai KupferschmidtSep 13, 2025
The New York Times has rarely felt as hopelessly out of its depth as in the past two days or so. There is still much I admire, many journalists I respect and trust, but on the Charlie Kirk assassination it simply hasn’t been very informative - not to mention some atrocious opinion “journalism”.
Show threadKai Kupferschmidt

Here are some pieces and journalists I actually learnt something from: @justinling on Kirk’s position in the MAGA movement including this line:

“In the same way that his beliefs do not justify his murder, his murder can’t justify his beliefs either.”

https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/who-was-charlie-kirk-anyway

Who Was Charlie Kirk, Anyway?

Kirk occupied a uniquely powerful place in the MAGA movement

Bug-eyed and Shameless
Sep 13, 2025 at 10:24amWeb
Show threadKai KupferschmidtSep 13, 2025
“But it is hard not to notice that, in the aggregate, something poisonous is in the architecture of its platforms and the way that our technologies demand not just our attention, but our most heightened emotions,”
Charlie Warzel wrote in his piece here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/09/charlie-kirk-assassination-online-reaction/684201/?gift=bQgJMMVzeo8RHHcE1_KM0ZY_8qLLAueznc8lg3WkEto&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Something Is Very Wrong Online

The cycle of violence will continue as long as the medium doesn’t change.

The Atlantic
Show threadKai KupferschmidtSep 13, 2025

And this one via Ryan Broderick sent me down some rabbit holes (but in a good way).

https://www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-kirk-was-killed-by-a-meme

Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme

Making sense of our dark new era of extremely online political violence

Garbage Day
Show threadKai KupferschmidtSep 13, 2025

None of this is to say that we know the motivation of the shooter or really much else - as all these pieces point out.

The most important thing to remember in these sorts of breaking news situations is to accept and acknowledge the uncertainty.
As I kept repeating re the science during the pandemic: WE DON’T KNOW (YET) and you should not trust anyone pretending they do.

Show threadKai KupferschmidtSep 13, 2025

But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t interesting and important context to be given on what we do know. You can hate the rush but social media will fill a vacuum quickly, and badly.

So read these pieces and if you feel you learnt from them share them and that can be your good deed for a better information ecosystem for the day… ;)