Saturday, April 1, 2023

The Mirror Savaged for Since-Deleted Profiling Nashville Shooting Suspect as 'Whimsical' and 'Childlike'

 

With one of the worst takes on Monday's shooting that took place at the Covenant School in Nashville, the Mirror has reminded how it is indeed a tabloid. In an article which no longer exists on the site--there's an error message--the tabloid provided a profile of the suspect, Audrey Hale, going in depth about what her art teacher told them, including how she was "whimsical" and "childlike." 

It appears that great lengths were taken to scrub such a take, since archived versions of the article still show the error message. The Mirror also appears to tried to do so quietly, without a note about the deleted article or accompanying tweets. So, they went with such a heinous tweet, and then tried to cover it up. People kept the receipts though.


The Mirror's Twitter account appeared to have already had a habit of deleting the tweets, though they would tweet it out again, at least for a time.

That was not the only article on the site profiling the shooting suspect, though. As of Saturday afternoon, there are several articles on the Mirror's website, similarly sensational, which obsess over the exact part of Hale's life. 

"Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale posted on Facebook about death of romantic partner," read a headline from March 29, two days after the shooting, which also resulted in Hale's death after responding Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo shot and killed her. 

A subheadline refers to Hale by using "they" pronouns. The piece also mentions that she preferred to go by the name Aiden and use he/him pronouns. Further, the piece also appears to have changed quotes from a teacher the outlet spoke to about Hale so as to avoid having to use the pronouns the suspected killer may not have preferred:

Ms Colomy told the New York Times about the death of Hale's partner: "She had been openly grieving about that on social media, and during the grieving is when she announced that she wanted to be addressed as a male."

Hale has posted photographs of Hale and the romantic partner playing basketball, and wrote about missing them.

Ms Colomy said Hale had an unusually strong reaction to having trouble creating a password for the online student portal, when they began crying on their first day.

The teacher asked them if they would like to step outside, and they did. It was, however, the only time Hale showed such exreme [sic] emotion in Ms Colomy's class.

Ms Colomy also told CNN that the appeared to be “suffering” in Facebook posts over the past year, when her posts grieved the apparent death of a former girls’ basketball teammate.

She said: “The only thing I would see (Hale) post would be about this girl."

She added: "From what I saw on (Hale’s) social, (Hale) was suffering."

Hale's Facebook page has been taken down.

Another part of the article shows changed quotes, only to publish factually incorrect information. "Investigators believe the shooter had 'some resentment for having to go to [the private Catholic school]'," the article reads. The Covenant School that the article is presumbably referring to, where Hale killed six people, is Presbyterian. 

Three of the victims were 9-year-old children, including Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scrugg. Mike Hill, 61; Cynthia Peak, 61; and Katherine Koonce, 60 were also killed.

An article from March 31 bears the headline "Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale was 'infatuated' with teammate killed in car crash," which details how the sister of that teammate is taking issue with her sister being involved in this:

The 28-year-old killer was reportedly obsessed with Sydney Sims, a basketball player who played on the same team as Hale nearly 15 years ago.

Ms Sims' was killed in a car crash in August last year which left Hale, who police said was transgender, "heartbroken", and she made a number of posts on Facebook detailing how the shooter was struggling with her loss.

According to reports, Hales' struggle to deal with the basketball player's loss could have sparked the massacre.

However, Sidney's sister Taylor, 28, has hit back at suggestions, taking to her Instagram page to stress her sister's death had nothing to do with the shooting.

Such articles have also been shared by the Mirror's Twitter account. 

Other suggested articles from the site contain similarly sensationalized headlines, including "Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale lived with parents and drew disturbing illustrations," "Nashville shooter Audrey Hale appears in college vid talking about 'growing as an artist'," and "Mum bravely interrupts Nashville mass shooting report to beg for stricter gun control."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2023/04/01/the-mirror-savaged-for-profiling-nashville-shooting-suspect-as-whimsical-and-childlike-n2621380

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