Minnesota Shooting: Political Rorschach Test

Case Study of How Media Feeds Deep Polarization

Moments after an armed and masked ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota last week many Americans immediately retreated to their partisan corners. The latest polling, from YouGov, illustrates the usual partisan split that now characterizes the fragmented American political landscape – this absent any formal investigation. Almost 2 in 3 Republicans (64%) say the shooting was “justified” compared to 3% of Democrats.

Sadly, polling finds that most Americans cannot even agree on basic facts. Kellyanne Conway put it in Orwellian terms in 2017 when she defended false claims about President Trump’s inauguration crowd size. She claimed that the Trump team had “alternative facts.” --even when the Trump team’s facts were easily disproved. This controversial phrase led to the now often repeated phrase “You have your facts, we have ours.”

Today, polling finds that large majorities of partisans on both sides repeat this thinking – that Democrats and Republicans “cannot agree on basic facts.”

Media Role in Polarizing America

Our mission today is to shine a light on one major accelerant of this deepening and dangerous polarization -- the changing media landscape, pouring fuel on the partisan fires. This emotional hostility has grown steadily for decades and now shapes how Americans interpret facts, view institutions, and engage with politics.

Pew Research reports that Americans are not just divided on issues. Rather we see a growing tendency for Americans to dislike, distrust, and even dehumanize members of the opposing political party—by reshaping how people encounter information, how they form political identities, and how they emotionally react to out‑groups. Our fragmented and highly partisan media play a key role here.

Moreover, communications scholar Diana Mutz finds that the media today amplify political polarization by magnifying conflict, rewarding outrage, segmenting audiences into partisan “information bubbles,” and spreading or reinforcing misinformation. And cable news and social platforms intensify divisions by design, not by accident. Chasing ratings, audiences now expect incivility, pushing traditional media to “up the ante” to keep pace.

A Case Study of Partisan Media Fueling Polarization

Sadly, the tragic fatal shooting in Minnesota serves as a case study in how our deeply polarized media now shapes our politics.

As background, two hours after the shooting and with no independent investigation of the shooting, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem released a statement which she repeated across multiple news outlets:

- defended the ICE agent,

- accused Renee Good of “domestic terrorism,” and

- asserted she had “weaponized her vehicle.”

The entire incident was framed as an “attack on a federal agent.” Noem’s statement became the talking points for a host of Trump administration spokespeople, including Vice President J.D. Vance – and then echoed by Trump-aligned media.

Then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the Department of Justice saw “no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into the officer’s actions, leading to the resignation of many DOJ officials. In fact, the FBI’s investigation is focusing not on the killing but on trying to find any ties by Good to domestic terrorism organizations.

On Sunday, President Trump described Ms. Good and her widow, Becca Good, as being “professional agitators” based on no evidence. Then adding that the authorities would “find out who’s paying for it.” He offered no evidence to support his claims.

Polarized Media Coverage: Different Worlds

Here’s how Trump-leaning Fox News characterized the shooting:

Fox News parroted administration claims. They emphasized the self‑defense narrative and highlighted unsubstantiated claims that Good used her vehicle as a weapon:

• Fox reported that Good “allegedly drove a vehicle toward officers” and that the agent fired after saying “whoa” as the car moved forward.

• Fox repeated DHS claims that Good was part of “ICE Watch” and that the incident was an “act of domestic terrorism” against ICE officers.

• Fox News host Brian Kilmeade attacked Good as a “trained activist” who was “harassing ICE officials every single day.”

By contrast, the New York Times published a visual‑forensics analysis showing Good was driving away, not toward, the ICE officer – contradicting and angering the Trump administration.

According to their reporting:

• The New York Times analyzed multiple camera angles from bystander videos.

• Their conclusion: Good’s vehicle appeared to be moving away from the officer when he opened fire, not toward him.

• This directly contradicted the administration’s claim that the officer shot in self‑defense because he was being rammed.

Right-Wing Social Media Coverage

Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog, summarized right-wing social media coverage as follows:

• Ian Miles Cheong called her a “rug munching leftist” and “privileged white woman.”

• Matt Walsh called her a “lesbian agitator” who died protecting “68 IQ Somali scammers.”

• The Quartering questioned her parenting, implying she was unfit.

In summary, Media Matters reported that right‑wing media said the shooting “was her own doing” and labeled her a “perpetrator” and “trained agitator.”

Fragmented Social Media: Now Top News Source

It’s been many years since families sat around the television and listened to Walter Cronkite’s steady voice deliver the news to inform, not to inflame. Importantly, the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard reports that for the first time, highly-political fragmented social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.” Print newspapers have become a niche medium.

Trump’s Media War

Trump has declared open war on the media. And his war on the media has had a profound impact on his party:

• Only 44% of Republicans now trust national news, down from 70% in 2016.

He has repeatedly called the media “fake news,” “the enemy of the people,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “low life reporters,” and even “human scum.” He told Leslie Stahl that he attacks the press “to discredit you all… so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.” He relentlessly attacks the “failing” New York Times, even as he sat for an interview with their reporters last week.

His approach is not just rhetorical—he has used lawsuits, regulatory pressure, and public shaming campaigns to punish or intimidate outlets he dislikes. “Fake news” functions as a loyalty signal—supporters are expected to reject mainstream journalism.

Critics say he uses litigation as a “strategic weapon designed to silence his enemies and critics.” Several major news organizations settled lawsuits with Trump – suits that most legal observers say have no or little merit.

• ABC (Disney) agreed to pay more than $15 million to Trump’s presidential foundation to settle a defamation lawsuit over a segment on This Week, a weekend news show, saying they wanted to avoid prolonged litigation.

• CBS and its parent Paramount Global settled a lawsuit for $16 million involving the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.

• YouTube agreed to pay roughly $24.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit over Trump’s account suspension after the January 6 Capitol riot. They stated that his content violated policies against incitement of violence.

He has also initiated suits against the Wall Street Journal and the BBC, among others.

Record Declines in Media Trust

The upshot of the changing media landscape and Trump’s media assault is the Pew finds trust in both national and local news organizations declined sharply in 2025, particularly among Republicans:

• 56% of U.S. adults say they have a lot or some trust in national news organizations — down 11 points since March 2025 and 20 points since 2016.

• Trust in local news is higher at 70%, but also down from 80% in March and 82% in 2016.

• Only 44% of Republicans now trust national news, down from 70% in 2016.

• 69% of Democrats trust national news, but this too has fallen recently.

Key takeaway: Trust is declining for everyone, but the partisan gap remains large.

Other Troubling Factors: Trump Intervention?

Media ownership is increasingly concentrated in the hands of billionaires whose political and economic interests shape what the public sees, hears, and debates. This trend is accelerating across newspapers, television networks, and digital platforms, raising concerns about democratic accountability, editorial independence, and the narrowing of the information ecosystem.

The battle for ownership of CNN has become one of the most dramatic media‑political power struggles in years, driven by a multibillion‑dollar bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery and threatened direct intervention by Donald Trump. The fight now involves Netflix, Paramount/Skydance, and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Trump has publicly insisted that CNN be sold or restructured as part of any deal. He has long argued that CNN’s reporting is biased against him. He said the people running CNN are “either corrupt or incompetent” and should not be allowed to continue operating the network. Larry Ellison’s Paramount has political ties to Trump.

• Trump has openly said he may be “involved” in the decision.

Changes at CBS News

New CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil took the chair last week, with the news division now under the direction of controversial what many critics describe as right-leaning editor-in- chief Bari Weiss. Weiss was hand-picked by SkyDance Paramount billionaire owner and Trump supporter Larry Ellison. The initial broadcasts were marked by unusually friendly coverage of the Trump administration.

Two hours before airtime Weiss pulled a 60 Minutes segment by Sharyn Alfonsi critical of Trump‑era deportations to the notorious El Salvador’s CECOT prison. Alfonsi argued that this amounted to political interference, noting that government refusal to comment should not function as a “kill switch.” Weiss reportedly “delayed” another 60 Minutes story about the Trump administration’s decision to accept certain South African refugees — a topic tied to Trump’s rhetoric about “white genocide.”

In Sum

Our objective here was not to draw conclusions about the tragic shooting and ICE actions in Minnesota. Our mission here was to explore how the changing media environment has fueled rampant and dangerous political polarization.

A final note: As Factcheck.org notes, we do need more detailed information – not more blistering political invective -- about the sequence of events before drawing conclusions. However, thus far, Minnesota officials have been blocked from the investigation. And the only investigation ordered by the Justice Department was of Renee Good’s widow for ties to activist groups. There will be no federal review of the use of force by the ICE agent. Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned citing the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter.

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