It’s a sad indictment of journalism today that reporters were fine with printing an unverified accusation that will smear an accused man without any evidence.
Bryan Kohberger, the criminology student arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary connected to the quadruple slaying of four University of Idaho students, may be signaling an intent to plead not guilty. Kohberger is currently represented by public defender Jason LaBar in Pennsylvania, who is handling the extradition order. LaBar told CNN that “Mr. Kohberger is eager to be exonerated of these charges and looks forward to resolving these matters as promptly as possible,” he said, forecasting that Kohberger intends to plead not guilty.
Moscow police have been unable to disclose what evidence they have against Kohberger that led to the arrest due to pre-trial rules in Idaho that restrict what information they can release to the public. Kohberger, however, does not intend to fight extradition, which will speed up the process of releasing the arrest and charging documents to the public.
LaBar revealed more details about Kohberger’s trip from Idaho to Pennsylvania, saying he left Idaho on Dec. 17 with his father, who met him in Idaho for the long drive home to Pennsylvania for Christmas break. The media frenzy has begun in earnest, and every person who has ever been in contact with Kohberger is being plied for interviews by reporters looking for any angle that will get those coveted clicks.
Reporters at the New York Times turned to Kohberger’s criminology classmates at Washington State University, who said that when the class discussed the murders, he was unusually quiet and didn’t participate in the discussions.
“We had quite a long conversation in class about it too. I don’t believe I remember him commenting about it at all,” classmate B.K. Norton told the New York Times.
Norton, a lesbian, weirdly accused Kohberger of making “anti-LGBTQ” comments but did not tell the reporters what those comments were. Her accusation was repeated in many news publications that lifted her quotes from the Times. At least one other student, who did not want to be named, backed up Norton’s account but didn’t elaborate on the actual comments, though they said the incident “somewhat isolated” Kohberger from other students and he had trouble making friends after that. Was Kohberger canceled by his classmates for wrongthink? Why didn’t the reporters who interviewed Kohberger’s classmates nail down what the “offensive” comments were?
Instead, they chose to leave that part of this story undisclosed and open to the interpretation of the reader to imagine some dastardly insult, when history proves that LGBTQ activists are so easily offended that the things one can’t say change almost hourly.
