The corporate media’s silence about the murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, N.C., was bad enough. But when it finally did acknowledge the brutal killing, it was just as grotesque as the silence that came before it.
I was pleased to see Monday morning that the story about Zarutska’s was on the front page of Axios, but the headline and the story itself demonstrated that the outlet had an agenda that had less to do with the story and more to do with how MAGA made it one they couldn’t ignore.
Zarutska’s death wasn’t just a random act of violence. It was a preventable atrocity that Decarlos Brown, a violent career criminal with a lengthy rap sheet, committed. He had fourteen arrests under his belt, including a five-year stint for armed robbery. Yet earlier this year, Brown was back on the streets, released without bail despite his obvious threat to public safety. Anyone with common sense can see what happened here: a justice system derailed by soft-on-crime policies and indulgent prosecutors gave this man opportunity after opportunity, until he finally took an innocent woman’s life.
And liberal media outlets blame MAGA for having the audacity to think the public should know about this story.
That fact alone should be the heart of this story. But Axios reporter Marc Caputo didn’t seem interested in examining how a dangerous repeat offender was left free to kill. Instead, his focus was on how conservative influencers supposedly exploited the murder to push a “MAGA crime narrative.”
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A young woman’s life was brutally cut short, her family shattered, the community terrorized, and what bothers Axios more is that conservatives are pointing out the obvious: that the policies of the left are fueling a wave of preventable crime.
Even worse, Caputo went so far as to wring his hands about how the graphic surveillance footage of the murder spread across social media and lamented how it distracts from the left-wing talking point that crime is actually decreasing.
MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases.
Shocking video of the fatal Aug. 22 knife attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, dominated weekend conversation on Trump-friendly social media.
The big picture: The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including on Charlotte's light rail, has become a big accelerant in these cases.
The video is easily shared or leaked, and can instantly pollinate across social media — a visual counterpoint to statistics showing crime decreases.
We hear that the proliferation of cameras is part of the problem because, according to this twisted line of thought, video evidence only makes it harder to bury these stories. It’s astonishing. What the media conveniently forgets is how the left spent years exploiting the George Floyd video, playing it on endless loops, and turning it into the launching pad for a nationwide campaign to paint police as racist, fueling the Defund the Police movement.
When the video footage advances the leftist cause, it’s essential. When it exposes left-wing failures, suddenly the media wants fewer cameras and less public evidence.
This isn’t just an Axios problem, either. The entire liberal media machine runs the same playbook: when a story threatens its ideological narrative, it defaults to the tired “Republicans pounce” framing. Outlets minimize the tragedy, dismiss it as a partisan talking point, and scold conservatives for giving the story oxygen. And in this case, Axios even contradicted its own prior reporting, where it had once admitted that violent crime was spiking in Charlotte.
The selective memory is not an accident. It’s an editorial choice.
Meanwhile, conservative outlets and commentators have been the ones keeping Iryna Zarutska’s name and story in the public eye. The horrifying video of her murder may have been shocking to watch, but it ripped off the veil that the establishment press had worked so hard to hide.
When the corporate media censors tragedy and pushes a biased narrative, PJ Media stands firm in telling the real story behind rising violence. Support fearless journalism that uncovers the truth about Iryna Zarutska and the failed policies endangering us all. Join PJ Media VIP now with the code FIGHT for 60% off. Support America First reporting today.