A man armed with weapons attempted on Saturday to access the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, which was attended by President Trump, several members of his Cabinet, and representatives of the media. The suspect was stopped before he was able to enter the room hosting the event, which was then canceled. One Secret Service agent was shot and received only minor injuries. Our analysts rated the weekend’s media coverage about the shooting for our Topic of the Week.

An article from Politico gives the basic facts about the incident and updates about the investigation into the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen. The article quotes acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, law enforcement officials, and those who were in attendance at the dinner. It also quotes President Trump, who spoke about the safety measures of his proposed White House ballroom, and gives background about the lawsuit that has slowed construction of it. Analysts found the article to be a “mix of fact reporting and analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

President Trump was interviewed by Norah O’Donnell on Sunday’s episode of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” and our analysts rated that interview. Trump describes the incident and his removal from the scene by Secret Service agents. O’Donnell asks Trump about his relationship with journalists and his reaction to the suspect’s “manifesto.” Trump defends himself and calls O’Donnell a “disgrace” for reading the manifesto, which refers to “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor” in the administration. Trump says the “hate speech of the Democrats” is “very dangerous.” Analysts found the interview to be “provocative” at points and noted that O’Donnell did not counter unverified claims by Trump. They scored the interview as “analysis” with a “middle/balanced” bias.

An article from The Guardian also was rated as “analysis,” but with a “strong left” bias. The article focuses on reaction to the “brazen assault” amid questions related to “political violence, security and gun control.” The article quotes several officials who “decried the normalisation of violence” and said “we have not dealt with the problem” of gun violence. “America has more guns, and more phones, than people,” the article says. The article says that “Trump himself has often been criticised as an accelerant of vitriolic and incendiary discourse” before quoting some of his previous comments. Analysts found that the reporting was fact-based but often presented information from a left-leaning point of view.

A short article from Breitbart focuses on a social media post by actress and activist Mia Farrow, who suggests that the attack was orchestrated by Trump to “raise his approval ratings.” It quotes other online comments that agree with her theory and calls Bluesky the “Democrat digital echo chamber.” The article notes that Farrow is “no stranger to spreading conspiracies” and shares some of her previous comments related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Analysts rated the article as “opinion” with a “strong right” bias.

Scoring slightly lower is an article from Townhall with the headline: “The Left Were Absolute Psychopaths Following the Attack on the WHCA Dinner.” The article includes images of several social media posts from what the article describes as “left-leaning influencers” who are “pushing the ‘it was staged’ narrative because a) they’re Trump-obsessed, b) they’re generally foolish, and c) they don’t want to be held responsible for their nonsensical, violence-promoting rhetoric that fuels these lunatics trying to assassinate government officials.” The article insults the posters (for example, it calls Mary Trump “grade-A trash”) and concludes: “All of you people need help.” Analysts found that the article insults the left and blames it for the violence and noted the low effort of re-reporting social media posts when rating the article as “unfair persuasion” with a “hyper-partisan right” bias.

The lowest-rated content from our set is a video from the Jack Cocchiarella YouTube channel. In it, the host asks if the shooter was there to target journalists or if the entire incident was “fake. Was it a stunt? These aren’t conspiratorial questions.” He claims wrongly that there were no metal detectors at the event and that “shots were fired into a crowd of, yes, high-ranking cabinet officials.” He agrees with people who felt the shooting seemed “fake” or “suspicious” because the purpose of the event was to award journalists for reporting about the Epstein files, and Trump doesn’t want that. “I want to validate questioning everything this government does,” he says. “We are not being conspiracy theorists … by asking questions of a government that hides things and attacks us and kills us in the street.” He ends by blaming Trump “for the political violence in this country.” Analysts found insults, foul language, inaccurate information and unsupported conspiracy theories in the video, rating it as “misleading” with a “hyper-partisan left” bias.

If you’d like to follow along on our weekly Topic of the Week exercise, you can do so by visiting our website. New Topics of the Week are posted each Monday. Read the articles and watch the videos yourself, then come back on Wednesday to compare your scores with those of our analysts. Learn more here.

Beth Heldebrandt is Director of Communications at Ad Fontes Media. She has more than 35 years of experience in the fields of journalism and public relations, and was an adjunct instructor of journalism for 17 years at Eastern Illinois University. Beth has a B.A. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and an M.A. in English from Eastern Illinois University. She’s a mom and grandma, and enjoys traveling, puzzles and reading.