It didn’t take CNN long to start spreading fake news after Friday’s school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas.
CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto and political correspondent Sara Murray both tweeted that today’s deadly shooting brings the total number of U.S. school shootings this year to 22.
This brings the number of U.S. school shootings this year to 22. https://t.co/hS7KKFiO65
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) May 18, 2018
CNN’s list of confirmed school shootings for 2018 now stands at 22.
Twenty-two. Already. This year.
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) May 18, 2018
The list of school shootings used by CNN and other news outlets, however, wildly exaggerates the number by lumping in accidental firearm discharges, domestic disputes, and events that don’t involve students with the active shooter situations that most people don’t lump into the specific category of school shootings. (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Have There Been 18 School Shootings In 2018?)
CNN’s list includes one shooting incident in Alabama where one person was injured at an on-campus apartment building. Another shooting at Savannah State University in Georgia is counted despite the fact that the two people involved were not students.
Many media outlets also pull their numbers from Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit gun control advocacy group, and includes any time “a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds.” Their current count is even higher than CNN’s.