Yesterday I reported on a masked, lone wolf lunatic armed with “several knife-like objects” who went on a murderous rampage at a school in Trollhättan, Sweden. In my headline, I remarked on the fact that the mainstream media had chosen not to report on the incident, which left two people — a teacher and a student — dead.
Today, mysteriously, that unwritten press embargo was lifted. The Washington Post has an article that imparts information that was available a day earlier. But the Post story focuses mainly on new details about the killings that were not shared by the Swedish press yesterday: Police now say the killer had a “racist motive” and are classifying the attacks as a “hate crime.”
Police described the attack as linked to racism and Nazi-style sympathies, based on evidence including a suicide note.
“All together, this gives a picture that the perpetrator had a racist motive,” police said in a statement.
On Friday, the lead investigator, Thord Haraldsson, told journalists that “everything points to this being a hate crime.”
“He selected his victims and attacked the dark-skinned ones and left the light-skinned ones alone,” he said.
The attacker’s choice of school may not have been random. Kronan has a high proportion of immigrants, and the killer allegedly singled out some of his victims, the Associated Press reported.[…]
The apparently racially motivated killing spree was unprecedented in Sweden, a country that has long prided itself on civility and social cohesion but has recently seen an influx of immigrants as well as a surge in far-right, anti-immigrant sentiment. The attack is believed to be the deadliest ever to target a Swedish school.
All told, roughly 83% of the 650 words that comprise the article address this angle.
I am sure the Post has an explanation for why it chose to play down the story until a narrative emerged that fit its left-leaning agenda. To me, it looks a lot like hypocrisy.
