Several major U.S. newspapers – and their corresponding websites – hardly mentioned, or outright ignored, the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the front pages of their Thursday morning editions.
Special advisor of communications for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Steve Guest, tweeted on Thursday that the USA Today and The Chicago Tribune front pages failed to mention that a man armed with a pistol, a knife, pepper spray, and other tools meant to harm Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s home on Wednesday.
The suspect was identified as 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske. He claimed to be angry with the conservative justice’s intent to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade – as indicated by the recent leaked Supreme Court draft opinion – as well as frustrated with the court’s potential rulings on Second Amendment cases.
Roske was charged with "attempting to murder a United States Supreme Court Justice."
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Guest also claimed that The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times barely mentioned this earth-shattering story. It was relegated to the bottom of each paper’s respective front pages, in fine print.
Guest tweeted, "No mention of the assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the front pages of USA Today or the Chicago Tribune. The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times hid the news on the bottom of the page in small font."
"Shameful," he added, sharing screenshots of the front page of each paper. The images confirmed that there was no story about Kavanaugh’s would-be murderer on the front pages of USA Today or The Chicago Tribune.
The images also confirmed that The New York Times teased the story at the bottommost section of the front page. The small entry vaguely claimed in bold, "Arrest Near Home of Justice," and provided a quick blurb. "Officials said an armed man who went to Maryland with plans to kill Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh has been charged with attempted murder."
The paper indicated the full story could be found on page "A20."
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck confirmed this, tweeting, "Here's the front page of The New York Times. Not one story on the attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh. Instead, you have a footnote to see A-20 and a rather brief article."
"Articles that were longer? A journo goes deep into the Amazon and a deadly Korean ferry accident," he added, along with corresponding screenshots.
The Los Angeles Times front page treatment of the major story was just as poor. The preview for the piece was in the smallest section of the front page, in the bottom right corner near the paper’s scannable bar code. In bold, it read, "Man arrested at home of justice." In the preview description, it read, "Simi Valley suspect was armed and wanted to kill Brett Kavanaugh, FBI says."
It then told readers the story could be found on page "A6."
WEX Magazine managing editor Jay Caruso pointed out on the day of the arrest that The New York Times website sidelined the major story as well.
Sharing screenshots, he tweeted, "The police arrested a man who wanted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the @nytimes has it in their ‘More News’ section of their home page with the title, ‘Armed Man Is Arrested Near Home of Justice Kavanaugh.’"
In a subsequent post, he mentioned how the new Jurassic Park movie gets a top Times slot, while Kavanaugh’s attempted murder is located near a Trader Joe’s piece. "Top of the page - story about Jurassic Park film franchise. A foiled plot to assassinate a sitting Supreme Court Justice? Near the story about Trader Joe's employees wanting to unionize," he tweeted.
Fox News found that the L.A. Times website featured a small mention of the incident on Wednesday, which read "Armed California man arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home." That was found in the "More News" section of the website, which is several scrolls down the page.
As of early Thursday afternoon, Fox News found that the only mention of the Kavanaugh murder attempt on the L.A. Times website was a Business section column near the bottom of the webpage, titled, "Column: The threat to Justice Kavanaugh reveals a path to a gun control deal."
Within about the same timeframe, USA Today’s website featured the story more prominently in its main section via an opinion column published by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.
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Fox News found that the Kavanaugh story was relegated to the "More News" section of the Chicago Tribune’s website on Wednesday and, as of Thursday afternoon, no stories related to the incident could be found on the website.