LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Change language in reporting

OPINION:

Since the Jan. 6 incursion into the U.S. Capitol, The Washington Times has repeatedly used inflammatory rhetoric to characterize the event. Calling the criminality “an insurrection,” writing that “the riot left five people dead,” describing the event as a “deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol,” etc., was not in keeping with the facts known at the time of printing, but did serve to paint a consistent (and false) narrative.

Now the D.C. medical examiner has released the cause of death for four of the five individuals erroneously, maliciously and consistently reported by The Washington Times as being dead “as a result of” the events at the Capitol. As was knowable almost immediately after Jan. 6, the medical examiner reported on April 7 that three of the purported five deaths were due to medical conditions, and that only one person died as a result of the event: Ashli Babbitt, shot and killed by a U.S. Capitol Police officer, name and rationale still unknown (is The Times pushing for answers?).

The Washington Times buried the lede on this story on April 8, acting as though the big news was that Brian Sicknick’s cause of death still hasn’t been released, rather than highlighting that to date the medical examiner had established that only one of five who were repeatedly reported to have died as a result of the incursion did in fact die as a result of it.

The bottom line is that The Washington Times has repeatedly printed inflammatory lies. It could have taken this opportunity to acknowledge the repeated “errors” and apologize for them given the medical examiner’s report, but it chose instead to continue to dissemble. Not cool and certainly not good journalism.

THOMAS E. STICKFORD

Burke, Va.