If an act of violence is committed against a minority group in the United States, conservatives are probably responsible.

At least, that’s the message major newsrooms tend to push following these types of incidents. Never mind the details. Never mind the facts. Conservatives probably inspired or encouraged the violence. The perpetrator may even be a right-winger!

Case in point: The Associated Press attempted this week to tie a racist shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). And all because Florida’s Republican governor opposes hyperracialist curricula and left-wing historical revisionism, including the embarrassing 1619 Project.

"Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use ‘extreme care’ if traveling to Florida," AP reporter Steven Peoples announced on social media, sharing a link to a report he co-authored with fellow AP reporter Brendan Farrington.

Peoples added: "Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African Americans dead. Black leaders in Florida — and across the nation — say they’re outraged by his actions and rhetoric ahead of the shooting."

The governor was not wrong to “scoff.” The “ travel advisory ” is ludicrous. The NAACP issued it after Florida rejected the College Board’s most up-to-date Advanced Placement African American Studies course framework, which covers, among other things, the “ gay experience ” in black communities and “Afrofuturism.” Really. The NAACP issued a “travel advisory,” characterizing Florida as an “openly hostile” state that “devalues and marginalizes” black people, because of a rejected Advanced Placement course.

The AP’s report on Jacksonville is ridiculous. It’s slanderous. It’s vile. It’s also par for the course. This is what tends to happen whenever there’s an act of violence with a political, racial, anti-gay, antisemitic, etc. angle. Conservatives are blamed — if the violence is even covered beyond the initial reports, that is.

In 2022, for example, members of the press tripped over each other to accuse conservatives of inciting a mass shooting at a gay club in Colorado, even as police officers were collecting evidence and witness testimonies.

"It starts from some smaller accounts online like Libs of TikTok, it moves to the right-wing blogosphere, and then it ends up on Tucker Carlson,” NBC News "disinformation" reporter Brandy Zadrozny argued, “explaining” the right-wing rhetoric that supposedly inspires anti-LGBT violence.

No one, not even law enforcement, had any clear idea at the time of who committed the killings or why. But not knowing has never stopped members of the press from drawing conclusions.

"I talked this morning about an inflection point in this country right now, specifically for reporters," NBC “disinformation" reporter Ben Collins added. "What are you more afraid of? Being on Breitbart for saying that trans people deserve to be alive? Or are you more afraid of waking up to the news of more dead people. I know what I'm more afraid of. And it ain't the first thing."

Later, after a court filing showed the suspected gunman in the slayings identified as "non-binary," Collins simply changed tack, switching from speculating that the shooter was a right-winger to speculating the supposedly “non-binary” shooter was bullied by right-wingers. It’s possible the gunman was lying about being "non-binary," but the point regarding Collins and like-minded “reporters” remains the same. For them, the truth isn’t the point. The narrative is.

In 2016, in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, members of the press were quick to blame the Right and Christians . The New York Times editorial board even argued the slayings were motivated by conservative U.S. politics and "an effort to approve discrimination against gay and transgender people nationwide under the guise of religious freedom."

“How Conservative Christian Activists Spent Decades Fomenting Anti-Gay Hate in Orlando,” read a headline to a Slate opinion article.

“[W]e can’t ignore America’s homegrown homophobia,” declared a Washington Post op-ed .

The gunman was a 29-year-old Afghan male who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State.

At the time that Christians were being blamed for the shooting, there was no evidence showing the gunman had even targeted the nightclub because it was a gay bar. (It would be proven later during a trial featuring the gunman’s wife that the nightclub was chosen at random.) The media’s knee-jerk reaction was simply to blame conservatives, especially Christians.

Then, in 2011, there was the big one: Then-Rep. Gabby Giffords was badly injured in a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist, quickly accused former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of inspiring the killings. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank alleged the same. There was never any clear link between Palin and the Tucson gunman. There is, however, evidence showing the gunman’s obsession with Giffords long predated Palin’s political ascent on the national stage.

There are additional examples of this sort of thing, but you get the picture. It’s a real and persistent trend in media. Political violence? Racist violence? Conservatives are probably responsible!

One big problem with this media trend, aside from it being vile and slanderous, is that it's applied inconsistently. You may have noticed that the trend never really goes the other way. The New York Times and the Washington Post haven’t suggested anything untoward about MSNBC, even after a deranged gunman expressed in his manifesto a deep admiration for the cable group’s political commentators . The New York Times and the Washington Post haven’t proposed that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tone down his rhetoric, even after a Sanders campaign volunteer attempted to kill the Republican delegation.

And while we’re on the topic of inconsistency, what of the reasoning behind the trend of reflexively blaming conservatives for violence aimed at minority groups? That is, if conservatives are guilty of inspiring or encouraging political violence by mere virtue of the fact that they’ve expressed critical opinions of certain people or groups, then what are we to make of criticisms of conservatives? Is President Joe Biden responsible now for all acts of violence committed against conservatives? Are the New York Times and the Washington Post, according to their own reasoning and logic, responsible for, say, the recent assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh? After all, when you print story after story and op-ed after op-ed alleging a certain political group wants to strip you of your rights and lead a genocide against people like you, readers may actually start to believe it. And they may then act on it. At least, that’s the reasoning behind the blame-conservatives-first media trend.

But we rarely, if ever, see the conversation go in the direction of the Left. The New York Times and the Washington Post certainly haven’t engaged in any manner of introspection, questioning whether their editorial tone and choices have inspired violence against conservatives. They certainly have never blamed Biden or his lieutenants for inspiring anti-conservative violence.

Media outlets rarely, if ever, blame left-wingers for vicious acts of political or racial violence, even when the violence is perpetrated by those with a stated love for left-wing personalities or positions. It’s only ever when the most exceptionally tenuous tie to conservatism presents itself that we are told we must have a “national dialogue” about political violence and extremism.

Now ask yourself why this tends to be the case.

Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.