Headline Roundup • September 6th, 2024
Fact Check: Did JD Vance Say School Shootings Were a "Fact of Life"?
Violence In America,2024 Presidential Election,JD Vance,School Shootings,Gun Control And Gun Rights,Media Bias,Facts And Fact Checking
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A headline from the Associated Press (Lean Left bias) quoted Sen. J.D. Vance as calling school shootings a "fact of life." After X users pointed out that Vance was actually "lamenting" the fact, the AP added the word to its headline.
The Quote: Responding to a recent school shooting at Apalachee High School, J.D. Vance said to supporters in Arizona, “I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets... We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
The Controversy: The original AP headline omitted the context that J.D. Vance said he did not like that shootings were a fact of life. The omission implies that Vance was dismissive of the violence, however some argue that is a mischaracterization. Including "laments" in the new headline captures Vance's sentiment about the frequency of shootings.
The Effect: Many outlets republish the AP's content, and search engines can be slow to update. At the time of writing, AllSides found that the homepages of search engines like Google and Bing still featured the old headline from several outlets. While outlets on the right were more likely to highlight criticism of the AP, The Telegraph (Lean Right bias) features a similar headline to the AP: "School shootings are just a fact of life, says JD Vance."
Featured Coverage of this Story
(Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)
It’s a fact of life politicians don’t always agree what is written about them in the media.
And they really don’t like it when a statement misrepresents what the politician intended to say.
That is the case when a spokesman for JD Vance, the candidate for vice president on the Republican ticket, took The Associated Press to task for a headline regarding the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia, per Fox News.
OLIVIER TOURON/AFP
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance referring to school shootings as "a fact of life" has ignited a firestorm of criticism and Republican claims that he was misquoted.
Two students and two teachers were killed at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Wednesday morning after a 14-year-old shooter opened fire and went on a rampage before surrendering to school resource officers, authorities said. The mass shooting quickly put gun violence back into the national political spotlight just two months before this year's presidential election.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said Thursday that he lamented that school shootings are a “fact of life” and argued the U.S. needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
