Media Outlets Hastily Report Misinformation About Quebec Mosque Attack

As everyday members of the public, we (should) all know not to blindly believe everything we read, particularly on Twitter. Journalists on the other hand have an obligation to be far more discerning than we and unfortunately, in their haste, they're often times not living up to that obligation.

In regards to yesterday's terrorist attack at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, a number of outlets got things wrong. Here are two:

First up is The Daily Beast. It appears they fell for a tweet from a fake Reuter's account, @ReutersBrk (now suspended):



Based on this tweet, mistakenly believed to have been from Reuters, TBD published the (misspelled) names of the two Alt-Right personalities in an article:

Police said two suspects were in custody after the attack. They were identified as white supremacists David M. J. Aurine and Mathieu Fornier, according to Reuters. This is not the first time the mosque has suffered from a hate crime. In July, a pig's head was left at the mosque.

Horrible, unprofessional, wreckless and wrong. While this sort of careless error is inexcusable, at least they had the integrity to correct their mistake as soon as they were made aware, updating the story to remove the names and to include the following editor's note:

Editor’s note: This piece originally stated that Reuters reported the names of the assailants. However, the information came from a Reuters parody social-media account. We regret the error and have deleted the information.

Next up we have Fox News. Fox News is by far the largest cable news network. They've dominated the market for a decade and a half and for the last several years have had more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. They're empire extends into talk radio and like the others, onto the web. Here we can see a tweet from Fox News that's still up:



As we all know now, the man referenced in the Fox tweet was revealed to have been a witness. Why Fox ignored the very existence of the other man who had been detained and who we now know is the suspected terrorist, is anyone's guess. They also ignored the reports from witnesses claiming that the attacker had a thick Québécois accent. Let's be perfectly honest, they were eager to drive a narrative — to provide fodder for the confirmation bias of their audience — to the point of misrepresenting essential facts. Fox has since updated their story but as noted above, the tweet remains.

I'm giving TBD an F for reporting and a B+ for handling their mistake. Fox on the other hand gets a D for both.

a reply to: theantediluvian

You missed the release of the middle eastern sounding names. That also circulated for awhile.

Having followed a few tragic events as they have unfolded here on ATS, I can say that rarely are the early assumptions true. The story evolves, very quickly sometimes.

Still, doesn't pull those agencies off the hook for what was OBVIOUS fake twitter feeds.

a reply to: JinMI

Oh s# this getting real in Canada!

a reply to: theantediluvian

Horrific journalism.

According to the CBC (Canada's state-run television), witnesses reported 2 masked men yelling "God is great" while shooting, probably only further inciting the fevered speculations. All the more reason to wait until the evidence is in, and probably reason to eschew the credibility of news outlets and social media altogether.

a reply to: JinMI

My fav when I read #chan boards was "Yuliq M'adik"... was secretly praying CNN would rush to report on that one.

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: JinMI

My fav when I read #chan boards was "Yuliq M'adik"... was secretly praying CNN would rush to report on that one.

What does that name translate to in a native tongue?

a reply to: drewlander

Haha! I may have missed that one.

I know I was swapping around ATS, Twitter and reddit and it was everywhere till I went to bed.

It turned from multiple suspects to one lone gunman. Something seems off about the story and canadians are going to ban 4chan. 4chan is laughing their arses off calling it the year of the rake that they have been telling Canadians for years was coming where all Canadians would be banned from 4chan.

Now back to the lone gunman theory and the linking to 4chan by canada which seems off. First reports said multiple gunman with eyewitnesses and it was reportered that way. A false story linked it too 2 white supremacists which was a fake story then it was linked to two syrian refugees and that was false now its one gunman. This whole story seems strange and i believe it might be fake. 2 gunman to one and the story of a ganman yelling allhu akbar in a canadian accent. What if it was really two refugees and this is a political coverup to save face from i told you so by trump supporters while attacking 4chan.

a reply to: digital01anarchy

Though the eyewitness accounts of 2 gunmen is suspicious, yelling "Allahu Akbar" is something a right-wing troll might do while slaughtering innocent people as they were praying. To me it seems within the realm of possibilities. With the eyewitness accounts and misinformation in doubt, we might have to wait until the case is heard in court before any conclusions are made.

At any rate, the piss-poor journalism is exposed for what it is.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: drewlander
a reply to: JinMI

My fav when I read #chan boards was "Yuliq M'adik"... was secretly praying CNN would rush to report on that one.

What does that name translate to in a native tongue?

Sound it out slowly.

As for the OP: This was just as bad as the horrible "reporting" about the Boston Marathon attack. They kept posting different people as the suspects, including one who'd come up missing and was actually dead. I'm pretty sure they also relied on random online forums and message boards to get their hastily compiled BS.

a reply to: enlightenedservant
'fake news' is starting to have the 'bystander effect', seriously.

but, now that the actual news came to light, it makes you wonder why theres not 30 threads on this terrorist attack and the misguided outrage ... you know like other terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic terrorists.

there's a quiet mood on this on ATS... wonder why.