Staff and pupils were evacuated from the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday when a 19-year-old entered the school killing two and injuring at least four others.

In spite of what little time there’s been since the incident, conspiracy theorists have, sadly, already begun to needlessly speculate about its aftermath.

The Claim

A Reddit post, shared on October 25, 2022, claimed that the media ignored the “mass shooting” in St. Louis because the suspected perpetrator was black.

The post included a screengrab from Telegram which claimed that “There was a school shooting yesterday in St Louis…Unless you glanced at the news between noon and 1pm yesterday, you never heard a peep about it. Because the shooter was Black.”

Similar claims have appeared on Twitter.

The Facts

This claim is verifiably false.

To start, the shooting was evidently and widely covered by multiple media outlets including The New York Times, AP News, ABC News, CBS News, Al Jazeera, NBC, BBC, The Guardian, CNN, Sky News, ITV, The Washington Post, Insider, The Daily Mail, Politico, TMZ, Newsmax, Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Christian Post, Buzzfeed News, Rolling Stone, Today, The Independent, USA Today, ESPN, Fox News, New York Post, Axios, Reuters, NPR, MSNBC, and Newsweek.

The gunman’s name, age, and race were confirmed in a press conference on October 24, 2022, details of which were included in reporting after the incident. To suggest the race of the suspect was overlooked in reporting is therefore inaccurate.

It’s worth noting that many journalists use ethical guidelines when reporting on mass shootings, which suggest minimizing the focus on perpetrators’ identities, showing images of them with weapons, and using photos sparingly. Details, such as race, therefore may be neglected (unless directly relevant), particularly if journalists are trying to limit descriptive accounts of a shooter.

For example, a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022, invoked deliberate examination of race after it was revealed the perpetrator had published hateful literature before the incident. When more information emerged about the suspected shooter’s motives in this case, it was promptly addressed in the reporting, including by Newsweek.

The posts on social media also imply that one shooting is the same as any other and each warrant equal media attention. This kind of false equivalency fails to take into account the complexity and nuances that surround such incidents.

For example, while the incident in St. Louis is no less heartbreaking for the families and communities of its victims, incidents such as the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, were also beset by failures of its local police force, outcry from parents, and surrounding political discourse such as the NRA holding a convention in Texas the same week, all of which resulted in extended media attention and coverage.

This is not to say that one tragedy is worse than another, but each will necessitate differing inquiry and accountability, principally to prevent further tragedies from unfolding elsewhere.

By contrast, reports have already praised the quick response time of the St. Louis Police, who arrived at the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School within four minutes of the initial call. The suspect was located less than ten minutes after.

Although a more technical and less important point, the Reddit post itself may be considered somewhat misleading in defining the event as a “mass shooting”.

Although what that term means is widely contested, and (as Newsweek Fact Check noted in the past) there is no strict legal definition, many have used the guidepost of four or more people killed in a single incident.

Under this definition, the incident would not amount to a “mass shooting,” and therefore—along with hundreds other shootings happening every year across the country—may not be reported as such by the media.

In short, the conspiracy narrative that media coverage was intentionally limited because journalists did not wish to expose the racial identity of the shooter is not only inaccurate, but also deeply insensitive.

The Ruling

False.

The media did not “cover up” the shooting at the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, as evidenced by the hundreds of reports and broadcasts following the tragedy.

The victim’s race was indeed identified following a press conference after the shooting. Any perceived attempts to limit the wider publicizing of their identity may well have been guided by media ethics on reporting shootings and their perpetrators.

Claims that the media ignored the incident in St Louis also fails to consider the inherent complexity, nuance, and levels of accountability unique to each of these type of tragedies and the appropriate reporting warranted therein.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team