We reported Friday on how the Las Vegas Sun, an online news outlet, tried to pull a fast one on readers earlier in the week by not only leaving out the fact that Quintez Brown, the suspect in the alleged assassination attempt of Democratic Louisville, Kentucky mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg, was a member of Black Lives Matter, but also by essentially blaming the shooting on “violent right-wing rhetoric.”

For those who missed it, the screengrab of what they originally wrote before adding a “clarification” is below. Note how they lead the editorial by highlighting how the shooting incident allegedly committed by a devoted BLM activist and gun control advocate “revealed the dangers of the talk coming from the right about civil war and political violence”:

Holy f*ck, @LasVegasSun. This editorial was written after the alleged shooter, Quintez Brown, was identified as a left-wing BLM activist. https://t.co/oZ2lEl71Lq pic.twitter.com/JG9Td1kQ5d

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 16, 2022

The editorial had been up nearly a full day before the Sun added in the suspect’s BLM affiliation. But even in adding that, they still held on to hope that he could somehow be tied to right-wing organizations so as to further justify (in their view) using the Louisville shooting involving an alleged radical leftist shooter to springboard into a lengthy diatribe against alleged “violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans.”

Popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson got wind of the editorial and blasted the writers for their deliberate dishonesty, not to mention for refusing to take the opportunity to tee off about the rise of left-wing violence in recent years:

Okay, so when Barack Obama’s favorited BLM-affiliated gun activists tries to assassinate someone, you are looking to prove that conservatives are dangerous. “While there’s been no indication yet that the activist had ties to any right-wing organizations,” the paper conceded generously since Brown had already been identified as a progressive activist when this editorial ran in the paper.

“The shooting comes amid a rise at threats to politicians fueled by increasingly violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans.” So it was extremist Republicans, not that Quintez Brown technically is an extremist Republican, but extremist Republicans exist, the paper wants you to know. So as long as there is a shooting while there are extremist Republicans afoot it’s the fault of extremist Republicans.

Instead of taking the legitimate criticisms about their highly deceptive editorial to heart and admit they made a mistake, the Sun instead tried to play the victim in response, claiming that Carlson’s rant and that of others at Fox News had led to threats against them, which the Sun suggested was ironic considering the subject matter of their original editorial. They also doubled down, noting they didn’t call their update to the story a “correction” because in their view there was nothing to correct – even though they very much misled readers after leaving out Quintez Brown’s BLM affiliation, which was well known at the time of publication of the original piece:

Unreal: The Las Vegas Sun editorial board wrote a 2,400+ word follow-up absolving itself of any malfeasance in misleading readers about Quintez Brown's political affiliations. Instead, they say they're the real victims, and blame the whole thing on @TuckerCarlson & @greggutfeld. pic.twitter.com/iP9s8TYN5f

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 21, 2022

In an era where trust in the media is at an all-time low, this is most definitely not how a media outlet should address critics who point out the highly misleading nature of an article or editorial. The proper response should have been “we promise to do better.” But it wasn’t, because like a lot of media organizations out there, the Sun would rather gaslight readers and make them think it’s them in the wrong than admit to errors/mistakes/falsehoods in their “reporting.”

The Sun has an “about” page dedicated to bragging about their “firsts” in journalism, their awards, etc. But any news outlet that proclaims to be top-notch in “editorial excellence” would have included actual facts about the Louisville BLM shooting. Further, they could have used it as a launching point to talk about the recent rise in violence against Asian-Americans and Jewish Americans perpetrated by people who most definitely don’t fit the “right won’t extremist” profile.

In fact, it’s looking more and more like Quintez Brown was motivated by anti-Semitism, assuming this is accurate:

In the two weeks before Quintez Brown the antisemitic radical terrorist, tried to murder a Jewish mayoral candidate, his social media has pictures accusing Jews of being plantation owners, accusing Jewish money of running politics, and trafficking Black Hebrew Israelite garbage. pic.twitter.com/aQu14LHbY6

— Rabbi S Litvin (@BluegrassRabbi) February 17, 2022

But yes, let’s devote an entire editorial to blaming right-rhetoric for a shooting that allegedly involved a radical leftist, because as we learned after the 2020 Antifa/BLM-led riots, the media simply cannot have people believing that hardcore activists on the left would ever engage in the type of violence that gets people hurt or killed.

Related: ‘Reporter’ Plays the Victim After Freedom Convoy Donors He Contacted Tell Him to Shove It (Updated)