This space is usually reserved for announcing the results of our Worst Media Take of the Week poll. We didn’t run a vote last week out of respect for Charlie Kirk and his family. 

Sadly, there’s been a lot of awful reactions to the horrific news. 

On MSNBC, host Katy Tur and contributor Matthew Dowd had horrible takes — literally just moments after the shooting. Dowd apologized but was deservedly fired. Tur remains employed at MSNBC. 

You can read my colleague Nick Fondacaro’s write-up on it here. The following is the worst portion of their conversation: 

Host Katy Tur: Talk to me about the environment. You know, we are — there are the reports of exactly what happened — are not confirmed yet, but talk to me about the environment in which a shooting like this happens.
Contributor Matthew Dowd: “Yeah. And again, I emphasize what you just emphasized. We don’t know the full details of this. We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration or — so, we have no idea about this. But following up on what was just said, he’s [Charlie Kirk] been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this who has constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups and I always go back to hateful thoughts, lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that’s the environment we’re in that, that people just — you can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place and that’s the unfortunate environment we’re in.”
— MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports, September 10. 

We will return to our regular voting this week. 

Thank you for your understanding. 

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