WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following this weekend’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a wave of misinformation, conspiracy theories and false claims about the incident flooded online. Most of these ideas suggested that the shooting was staged.
After news reports shared developments about the shooting at the Washington Hilton hotel, where the President and cabinet officials attended the annual WHCA dinner, people online claimed the shooting was “staged”. They shared comments online on posts related to the event, saying things such as: “fake shooting!”… “Another fake attempt”… “Great acting”… And “the worst staged event in history. Impeach Donald Trump.”
We asked Kaivan Shroff, a media and culture expert, why rumors and conspiracy theories gain a lot of traction following major events like this one:
“I think in this case as well as many others, these sort of conspiracies can sort of take off,” said Shroff. “There’s two things, there’s context and coincidence. The context here I think is twofold: in broader context this is a media dinner where they all kind of pat each other on the back and they sort of do this dance with the people that are in power with the people who they’re supposed to be accountable at a time when our leaders in government across parties and media are not popular with the public.”
He also adds that in the weeks leading up to the WHCA dinner, Big MAGA figures questioned previous shootings the President faced, like the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“So that’s buzzing online and then you have this event where people have that frame and there’s a couple of coincidences,” said Shroff. “Those coincidences that this is the first time Trump attended this dinner, that security seemed to be lax and I know people are debating that, but that leads to more questioning that right after the shooting you have a bunch of Republican members advocating for this ballroom construction which seemed coordinated to some people.”
We asked Shroff what advice he has for people to navigate through the misinformation and find credible information:
“Take a pause,” said Shroff. “I wait and see what’s coming out and go to news sources that are credible and not just stuff showing up on my Instagram feed.”
The White House and other lawmakers are dismissing the claims that the shooting was staged.
