MRC Hyped Leak Of Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto To Attack Transgender People

Like WorldNetDaily, the Media Research Center sought to exploit the leak of the pages from the alleged manifesto — actually more like notebook rants — of the “transgender shooter” at a Nashville school earlier this year as a way to portray all transgender people as violent and mentally ill. Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in a Nov. 6 post:

On Monday, Nashville authorities, Democratic politicians, and local media types were thrown into a tailspin by conservative podcaster Steven Crowder after he released three pages of the manifesto written by the transgender shooter that targeted elementary students at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this year. Despite the authenticity of the writings being confirmed by multiple outlets (local and national), the broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored it that night.

Instead of reporting on this massive leak, ABC’s World News Tonight chose to hype Dolly Parton getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, CBS Evening News touted Britain’s Price William handing out an environmentalist prize, while NBC Nightly News fretted over the actor’s strike dragging on. Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo also refused to cover the leak. NBC’s omission stood out because their local affiliate, WSMV had been reporting on it all day.

Fondacaro made sure to add a “warning” at the top of his post that he would be referencing “excerpts from what is alleged to be the manifesto of the transgender Nashville school shooter. Explicit and derogatory language is used. Reader discretion is advised.” He also complained that a local TV reporter pointed out how right-wingers were trying to exploit the leak:

Another local reporter, Phil Williams, the chief investigative correspondent for News Channel 5, confirmed the pages were real as well but claimed he had “multiple sources” that told him “the selective leak of three pages of the #CovenantSchool shooting ‘manifesto’ is EXTREMELY misleading.” “People who have read the whole thing say ‘there’s something in there for everybody.’ Another, ‘She hated everybody,’” he added.

Williams’ liberal bent was obvious since he put out multiple posts on X (formerly Twitter) lashing out at the “MAGA keyboard warriors” and “MAGA accounts” that were criticizing him.

Fondacaro didn’t explain how Williams pointing out right-wing attacks on him proved a “liberal bent.” The same day, Jorge Bonilla cited Fondacaro’s post in noting that “news broke of the leak of three pages from the Nashville school shooter’s manifesto (AKA the Nashville Trannifesto), which was covered by ZERO networks” — which, of course, proved Williams right in noting that right-wingers want to exploit the manifesto to peddle transphobia.

The next day, Bill D’Agostino made the transphobic intent explicit in complaining about how non-right-wing media weren’t obsessing over the “transgender Nashville shooter’s manifesto” the way his fellow right-wingers were:

A transgender woman who murdered three Christian schoolchildren and three teachers is a politically inconvenient story for the left generally, and the Democratic party and particular. Perhaps that’s why nobody’s surprised that CNN, MSNBC, and their ilk are attempting to prevent as many people as possible from learning about her professed motive.

Another Nov. 7 post by Fondacaro cheered NewsNation host Chris Cuomo attacking Nashville police for not releasing the alleged manifesto before then, though he grumbled that Cuomo “huffed that the manifesto was going to be ‘weaponized’ by ‘the right’ because of the shooter’s hatred toward them.” Fondacaro didn’t mention that he and his co-workers had been doing exactly that.

Catherine Salgado praised Crowder for leaking the manifesto pages in her own Nov. 7 post:

Louder with Crowder host Steven Crowder says YouTube censored his video exposing parts of the Nashville transgender shooter’s alleged manifesto.

Crowder obtained several pages of the alleged manifesto of Audrey Hale, a biological woman who identified as a man and killed six—including children—at a Christian elementary school in March. Screenshots indicate that YouTube removed Crowder’s podcast episode breaking the story and accused him of “glorif[ying] violent criminal organizations.”

It seems, however, the purpose of releasing the alleged manifesto was to expose Hale’s disturbing philosophy, not glorify it.

Salgado didn’t mention that the real purpose of Crowder hyping the leak was to impugn transgender people. And she completely ignored the fact that Crowder was exposed earlier this year hurling disgusting verbal abuse at his now-estranged wife and mistreating his employees; she didn’t note whether his leaking the manifesto absolves all that nasty behavior from him in the eyes of her and her fellow right-wingers.

Salgado also put YouTube stopping the spread of the leak in a Dec. 5 list of the “WORST Censorship of November” by “big tech,” making sure to note that Hale was “a biological woman who identified as a man.”