Champagne and Gunfire at the Correspondents’ Dinner: How Media’s Tidy Fiction Created a Shooter

<![CDATA[Saturday night at the Washington Hilton, two worlds met in real time. A 31-year-old Caltech-educated teacher and indie game developer, Cole Tomas Allen, had traveled across the country believing he was the “Friendly Federal Assassin,” duty-bound to stop what he saw as a criminal administration. When the shooting started, tuxedoed journalists, America’s self-appointed guardians of democracy and architects of The Narrative, scrambled across and underneath tables, snatching bottles of wine and champagne while the President and his staff were rushed to safety.]]>