Targeted Attack on The Islamic Center of San Diego: Ethical Media Responsibilities in Reporting Islamophobic Violence

SUMMARY: Justice For All reminds media organizations to identify the Islamophobic nature of the deadly attack on a San Diego mosque and place it in the context of consistent incitement by public figures and influencers against Muslims that influenced the shooters.

Following the deadly attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, major media organizations across the United States have largely failed to identify and contextualize the attack as an act of Islamophobic violence. Coverage has frequently minimized the ideological nature of the attack, focused on the suspects over the victims, and largely omitted broader discussions of Islamophobic rhetoric, state-sanctioned Islamophobia, and the climate that enabled it.

This advisory calls on journalists, editors, producers, and public officials to uphold ethical reporting standards by accurately naming Islamophobia, interrogating the political climate that enables and promotes Islamophobic violence, and centering communities impacted by the violence.

Key Concerns in Media Coverage

Failure to Use the Term “Islamophobia” 

Our team identified over 22,000 articles and broadcasts that covered the incident in the first 24 hours. Only a small fraction (just over 10%) correctly identified Islamophobia as the ideological motivation behind the horrific attack. 

Outlets are referring to the attack using vague language such as “anti-Islamic,” “possible hate crime,” “anti-hate incident,” and “anti-Muslim sentiment.”

This matters. Islamophobia is not merely interpersonal prejudice; it is part of a broader social and political pattern tied to fear-mongering, dehumanization, exclusion, surveillance, and violence targeting Muslims. 

Even in coverage of a targeted mosque attack, many newsrooms appear reluctant to clearly name Islamophobic hate. 

Lack of Scrutiny Toward Political Incitement and Public Figures 

Coverage also largely ignored the inflammatory rhetoric from prominent figures, including Laura Loomer, whose public statements included calls for deporting Muslims and inflammatory rhetoric following the attack. Only 6 of the over 22,000 articles and broadcasts we looked at mentioned Laura Loomer. 

While some reporting acknowledged that the shooting may have been motivated by hate, far less attention has been paid to the broader political environment in which Islamophobic rhetoric has been normalized, amplified, and politically rewarded. 

This pattern is not new. 

Following the 2017 Quebec City mosque massacre, court evidence revealed that the attacker, Alexandre Bissonette, spent extensive amounts of time consuming content from far-right commentators, white nationalist figures, conspiracy theorists, and political personalities, including Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Alex Jones, David Duke and Ben Shapiro. He explicitly linked his actions to fears stoked by Islamophobic and anti-Muslim discourse he consumed online.

Yet despite these well-documented patterns and similarities between the two incidents, anti-Muslim and Islamophobic rhetoric from prominent figures is treated as politcally controversial rather than rhetoric with potentially deadly consequences. 

This raises serious ethical questions for the media: 

• Would similar rhetoric be ignored if directed at Jewish communities following a synagogue attack?
• Why are media organizations unwilling to interrogate the normalization of anti-Muslim rhetoric in political discourse?
• What role does state-sanctioned Islamophobia play in enabling violence?

This attack cannot be viewed in isolation. Research continues to document

• Rising anti-Muslim violence 
• Online radicalization 
• Conspiracy narratives targeting Muslims
• Political normalization of Islamophobic rhetoric 

The San Diego mosque attack must not be treated as an isolated tragedy divorced from the broader climate of normalized anti-Muslim rhetoric and political incitement. Ethical journalism requires more than reporting the facts of violence; it requires accurately naming Islamophobia, interrogating the systems that enable it, and consistently centering the communities most impacted. 

For questions or statements, please contact:
Walaa Katoue
Chief Media Officer
Justice For All 
media@justiceforall.org