Sky News, a Comcast-owned British media organization, was criticized on social media for “blaming the victim” in the aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Trump.
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old man from western Pennsylvania, as the person who attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. Crooks reportedly shot Trump from a rooftop perch some 130 yards away, striking the upper part of Trump’s right ear. Trump survived and has been released from the hospital.
Sky News posted a story initially headlined, “Nothing justified an assassination bid – but did Trump play a part in changing the rules of engagement?”
Sky News changed its headline after widespread backlash.
The headline was quickly criticized on social media, with many accusing the news organization of victim blaming. Musician Winston Marshall posted on X that Sky News is “the winner for the most disgraceful, disgusting MSM headline” in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump.
“Straight to blaming the victim,” Marshall wrote.
Sky News eventually changed the headline to “US politics is laced with malevolence and division – it needs a reset,” but the original headline remained in the story’s URL.
The initial headline, which was captured by social media users, was confirmed to be authentic by Fox News Digital via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Many others took to X to criticize Sky News:
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Sky News correspondent James Matthews wrote in the story that in the aftermath of the assassination attempt “there were reminders from Trump opponents about how, in the past, he had joked about the brutal assault on the husband of former Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
“Likewise, his downplaying of a kidnap plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer wasn’t forgotten. No one’s claiming that anything justified an assassination attempt but the clear suggestion is that Donald Trump played his part in changing the rules of engagement and recklessly drove hostility in US politics,” Matthews wrote.
Comcast, which owns NBC and MSNBC in the United States, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sky News did not immediately respond to a series of questions, including whether the headline was changed because of backlash.
Fox News Digital’s Scott McDonald contributed to this report.