This morning, several news organizations reported that Tashfeen Malik, the woman suspect in the San Bernardino shooting, announced on Facebook her support of ISIS shortly before or during the attacks.

The Times is reporting that authorities believe the two were "self-radicalized" propaganda eaters who weren't directly led by the group. The suspects used guns purchased legally in the US.

A few minutes ago, NBC offered on their website what they called a "Live Tour Inside San Bernardino suspects apartment."

I dropped in on the coverage right as the broadcaster was walking into a bathroom and flipping through random photos, many of which showed children shaking the hands of police officers and cutting cake at a birthday party. "We can say this is not [Malik] because it says Sarah on the back." The reporter didn't know who these fucking people were, whether they were at all related to the alleged killers, or why anyone would keep photos in their bathroom where all the steam and water is. From what I saw, all this "tour" did was implicate a bunch of brown people in a crime they probably had nothing to do with.

Mashable took a bunch of screenshots of the NBC coverage, and shows that CNN was shooting a "live tour" of their own, interviewing apparently rando neighbors walking around the apartment. They also write that "CNN journalists described seeing licenses, social security cards and shredded documents inside the residence."

These tours seem bizarre and unethical. First of all, right now, it's unclear whether or not the FBI has finished their investigation of the scene, though Greg Sargent at the Washington Post claims the FBI "released the scene." More info is "forthcoming" as to whether reporters were specifically given access to that scene or whether the landlord just crowbarred the place open.


We didn't get a tour of Robert Dear's lonely bungalow. We didn't get a first look at Dylan Roof's childhood bedroom. But when the alleged killers are brown people who may have pledged allegiance to ISIS before slaughtering 14 people and injuring 21, we can go into their house and show you photos of their private shit.

Moreover, this kind of coverage is bullshit sensationalist reality show nonsense designed to make viewers think that they're doing some hard-nosed investigative journalism from the comfort of their commute. If the stuff that CNN and NBC reporters were rifling through was at all relevant to the investigation or to their connections with ISIS, then it would have been collected as evidence. It hasn't been, so it's not. It's only evidence that those news outlets are perfectly willing to sensationalize violence and perpetuate the stereotype that all brown people are terrorists.