Hi everybody, Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of the Cheryl Ackison Podcast.

Today, what happens when the media assumes racial motivations when there's no evidence of such a thing?

And to look at the inevitable official reversals beginning to take shape on COVID public health policy.

It is a disturbing and unjournalistic practice, assuming racism or hate or other motivations involving crimes committed against a victim, particularly who is or was part of a minority group, but never making that assumption when crimes are committed against whites.

The most recent high profile case of that is the sad group of murders of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

You've probably heard about these because many in the media were very anxious to tie these to what they thought, I guess, was some white supremacist who assaulted these poor Muslim men and shot them and killed them.

And listen, for example, statements put out in the aftermath of the fourth person who was shot in early August.

The Islamic Center of New Mexico put out a statement through their attorney saying, it's a surreal time for us right now, our families and our children.

It's not just about the Muslim community. We still do have a message of hope. We need to catch the perpetrator. Hate will not win. It cannot win.

And one article I'm reading goes on to say that law enforcement officials believe the shootings of these Middle Eastern and Muslim residents, quote, may be connected and racially and or religiously motivated.

Now, I would point out there was zero evidence indicating that that was the case. The only thing they were relying on is the fact that there were four men who happened to be a Muslim religion who were killed.

It certainly doesn't mean they were targeted for that reason. In fact, one of the things that crossed my mind when I heard about it was that there may be a dispute within the Muslim community in Albuquerque among a group that somehow led to these killings.

And lo and behold, that turns out to be according to police, the new theory of what really happened in this case.

Now that they've arrested a suspect who happens to be Muslim himself who attended the same mosque, say police as the four victims who were killed and who the suspect I'm talking about is an Afghanistan foreigner who's been living in the US for about five years.

But again, before the facts were known, these assumptions were made, including by many in the media.

President Biden stoked the racist sentiment by tweeting, these hateful attacks have no place in America that he was angered and saddened by the killings and that his administration, quote, stand strongly with the Muslim community.

Again, the assumption there, without any evidence, that the poor victims were targeted by somebody as part of a Muslim hate crime.

And I got to thinking, how many times in a row can the media jump on board with these ill-advised conclusions before they learn their lesson?

I mean, I think the lesson is there will never be enough lessons to stop people in this environment from forming these racist and unfounded conclusions.

Let's go over a few of the examples where there should have been lessons learned.

First of all, a really important case because the misreporting on this arguably led to riots and deaths and a movement that still to this day evokes a phrase that was never uttered according to investigators.

It's the case of Michael Brown, a black suspect who was shot by police officer Darren Wilson in 2014.

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