News reports were awash in misinformation following an explosion at the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Rainbow Bridge near Niagara Falls.

Some U.S. media began describing it as a terrorist explosion, caused by a vehicle entering from Canada.

Every element of that preceding sentence was dispelled within hours as flat-out wrong.

There was no attack from Canada; the incident occurred entirely on U.S. soil; in fact, authorities don’t believe it was a terrorist attack at all.

That didn’t stop a candidate for president of the United States from appearing on Fox News to promote an aspect of his platform: Building a border wall with Canada.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
    641·
    1 year ago

    Official reports called it at least a possible terrorist attack at first, I don’t really blame people for reporting it as a terrorist attack.

    The real problem was the further reaction…people bringing up the religion of the driver and making broad declarations about “why he did it” and “CLOSE THE BORDER” trending on Twitter. Just a wild immediate overreaction to a guy in a car crash.

    • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
      211·
      1 year ago

      Well, calling it something that it isn’t before all facts are in isn’t how reporting is supposed tonwork.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        171·
        1 year ago

        Exactly, it wasn’t even the words of an authority that got carried away. No one said “possible terrorist attack”. That phrase was 100% the fabrication of media. It didn’t even crossed the minds of the authorities investigating the incident.

    • Alto@kbin.social
      181·
      1 year ago

      And had they reported it as “officials say it may have been” instead of “IT WAS 100% DEFINITELY A TERRORIST ATTACK FROM THE GAYCHINESECOMMUNOISLAMISTS” it wouldn’t be a problem

    • derf82@lemmy.worldEnglish
      172·
      1 year ago

      Official reports called it at least a possible terrorist attack at first, I don’t really blame people for reporting it as a terrorist attack.

      Reporting is as a DEFINITE Islamic terror attack is something I blame people for. Sure, it is where people’s minds naturally went, but posting shit like “WE ARE AT WAR” coming from leading politicians and news commentators was flat out wrong.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
      64·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I watched some clips of the reporting. It was way beyond “this was probably a terrorist attack” fearmongering, and went clearly into the area of bigotry against “them.”

      @snaptastic Please let me know whether this comment meets your relevancy standards.