The Bizarre Media Treatment of the Mangione Case

By Thomas Neuburger

CEOs come and go and one just went The ingredients you got bake the cake you get —Jesse Welles

From one point of view, media behavior in the Luigi Mangione case is bizarre. According to journalist Ken Klippenstein (video here), New York Times management has said they don’t want to show photos of Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Klippenstein from his Substack:

NY Times Doesn’t Want You to See Shooter’s Face Internal New York Times messages about its coverage of alleged gunman Luigi Mangione have been leaked to me and the contents are revealing. On Tuesday, management said “the news value and public service of showing his face is diminishing,” instructing staff to “dial back” its use of such photos.

“News value is diminishing” is the opposite of what’s true. As Klippenstein and the Breaking Points hosts point (see video linked above), big print media today is obsessed with traffic. With this order, they’re cutting their throats (metaphorically) to spite his face.

The back of Luigi Mangione’s head. Photo: Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times

Klippenstein also notes that not just the Times, but all other media outlets who have Mangione’s “manifesto,” have refused to publish most of it. You can read the full document at Klippenstein’s site. It’s in fact little more than a note of explanation. But why is he alone in presenting it?

Three Reasons

There are three layers of reason for this odd behavior, both with respect to his photo and “manifesto,” each more instructive and important than the last.

The So-Called Copy-Cat Problem

The first and uppermost layer of reasoning is a professed fear of inspiring a copy-cat, someone so craven or weak-willed that they’ll copy the act. Call this the fanboy factor.

“I think we will still not pub the whole thing,[”] editor Andrea Kannapell added, “so as not to provide bullhorn.”

This has not stopped media in the past, however. Any number of killer “manifestos” have seen print, including both Dylann Roof’s and Ted Kazinsky’s in the Times. In addition, this document has been circulated widely but privately in both press and non-press circles. Clearly the copy-cat fear isn’t that strongly held.

The Times justification, according to the chat, is that photographs and words might have the effect of "amplifying the crime and inspiring others," as reporter Andy Newman said. Besides the New York Times' inflated view of its ability to de-amplify a crime that practically everyone is already talking about, the internal chat sheds light on the other arguably bigger reason the media shies away from disclosure […]

Captured by Sources or Eager Security Partners?

Klippenstein suspects a deeper reason: “its fear of antagonizing the sources it relies upon for scoops.”

News people clearly need sources among the cops and other “security” forces, and those sources are in position to extract concessions. “By donning the ‘public safety’ hat, the major media is in effect deputizing itself as a branch of the national security state,” writes Klippenstein.

He underplays their current delight in this role, but the observation is spot on. Ever since the summer of 2016 and emergent Trump-Russia allegations, big media, rightly or wrongly, has been gladly on board, seeing its duty as aiding the security state at every turn.

Why would it not do so here? After close to a decade of practice, it’s a well-trod path.

The Class War Comes Home

But the deeper reason, which Klippenstein doesn’t address, is in fact the most obvious. It’s so obvious that everyone but media is pointing it out.

The billionaire class, the maybe 1000 people who run the country plus a bunch of their CEOs, has been milking the country of cash since at least Reagan days, and we’ve been allowing it, willing if not eager participants.

Cows being milked (source)

Humans being milked (from The Matrix)

But the constant advantage-taking has taken its toll. Ever since Obama promised us hope-and-change…

…and failed to deliver, the nation has been pre-revolutionary. Certainly both Sanders campaigns showed that the hunger for relief was not just felt on the Right, but in the whole country.

Bernie Sanders rally, Minnesota, 2019

Crowd comparisons from the 2016 Democratic Party primary

For a variety of reasons, this discontent has given us President Trump two times out of three, and while many on the Right are best pleased, those on the Left or the silent uncared-about center (voters and non-voters alike) aren’t feeling well served.

Okay, that’s a euphemism. The nation is pissed. Health care in particular is a death trap for many, who pay and never get back, and then often die. UHC in particular is an industry apex predator:

And Thompson is a perfect example of a CEO class that, let’s be honest, kills for profit by aggressive denial of care. His compensation is estimated at $10 million per year and the company's “hugely profitable 2025 financial outlook [includes] expected revenues upwards of $450 billion.”

People watch people die and the rich grow fat. How else to explain the massive swell of support for Mangione’s deed? It’s hard to find articles documenting it, but the phenomenon itself is rampant on Twitter and TikTok. And it’s not just the kids. Doctors and patients weigh in.

Check it out for yourself. People sing Mangione’s praise and almost literally dance above Thompson’s grave.

People see murderers getting their just deserts “Jack Reacher-style” (a widely loved hero-avenger, by the way) and they’re not troubled at all. The fact is, most Americans will justify retribution. Didn’t most of us cheer while watching both Iraq Wars?

So the fear of a copy-cat wave is both wrong and right. It may not be the few and deranged that are inspired, but the many and done-being-had — not a simple repeat of an awful deed, but a sudden Arab Spring. You never know; there really are moments this fraught with radical paths.

I don’t condone murder, and I don’t want to live in a state filled with killing and war. But I do know people, and sometimes, when in Jefferson’s words “a long train of abuses and usurpations” drives people to act, they act regardless of outcome.

We may be watching that now. I think the rich think we are.