So once the initial details of the attack became known, observers quite naturally interpreted it as an expression of homicidal hatred for people of Asian descent.
At the same time, it was also plausible that the race of the killer’s victims was truly incidental. It’s conceivable that a guilt-ridden sex addict would have preferred to procure sexual services at ostensibly licit businesses — in which case, he might have been attracted to the spas for their plausible deniability rather than the ethnicity of their staff.
The stakes of suspending epistemic humility in this case were not terribly high. And it remains possible that anti-Asian animus motivated the shootings. But a journalistic culture that stigmatizes reluctance to affirm unproven interpretations of breaking-news events is not a healthy one. There can be no moral clarity without intellectual honesty.
Even as newsrooms have come under financial strain, outlets have found themselves facing ever-steeper competition for the public’s limited attention. Consumers today can watch virtually every movie or TV show ever made on their phone. They can binge algorithmically curated shortform videos on TikTok. On their Twitter and Facebook feeds, a thousand different headlines compete for their clicks.
Oh man didn’t realize we were even blamed for this shit, which obviously boomers did lmao