TV Station Shooting Exposes Media Bias

It has taken far too long to piece together the truth about the Sacramento shooter who targeted an ABC affiliate. That delay wasn’t accidental.

From the start, details about the incident were quietly buried, scrubbed from the internet, or mentioned only in passing before disappearing altogether. In an age where newsrooms pounce on stories, spinning them into partisan narratives, the near blackout on this one says more than the shooting itself.

Yes, a Sacramento television station—an ABC affiliate owned by Tegna—got fired upon in broad daylight. Three bullets struck the station’s lobby, forcing an immediate lockdown and a 9-1-1 call to law enforcement. At the time, journalists speculated whether this was another episode of California’s rising violent crime problem or, more ominously, political violence.

And then—almost instantly—the story evaporated.

Why? Because the suspect, it turns out, was not the kind of criminal the media wanted to talk about.

The shooter is Al Hernandez Santana. He isn’t some random street criminal. Santana is part of California’s political machinery. He once served as chief legislative staffer for the powerful California Federation of Teachers, one of the largest and most influential unions in the state. He also worked as a state appointee on the Indian Health Board and has a history of political activism.

His résumé alone should have kept the story alive for weeks. A former top union lobbyist arrested for firing into the offices of a media outlet?

It should have been front-page news nationwide, but instead of digging into his background, most media outlets dropped the story altogether. The same industry that can’t stop lecturing about the dangers of “political violence” suddenly lost its appetite upon learning that the shooter is a far-left operative with deep ties to California’s Democratic establishment.

In the hours after the attack, national outlets did what they always do after a shooting–breathless coverage, live shots from the scene, and soundbites from police promising accountability.

NBC reported: “Tonight, gunshots fired at an ABC-affiliated television station in Sacramento. Bullet holes were seen in the window of the lobby. An employee of the Tegna-owned station telling NBC News someone pulled up, fired into the lobby, and drove off.”

But after the suspect’s arrest, coverage shifted quickly. Suddenly, reporters lost interest in a motive. Networks pivoted toward safer ground—commentary about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, speculation about Disney’s corporate politics—anything to avoid the uncomfortable fact that the shooter wasn’t a right-wing extremist but rather a union insider with a documented history of far-left political rhetoric.

Within days, the story became a local footnote. Search results online became increasingly sparse. To find the details now, one must dig through archives, press releases, and cached versions of deleted articles. The mainstream press has performed a quiet erasure.

Santana’s social media history makes his motives hard to deny. He posted openly hostile comments toward conservatives, including grotesque remarks wishing death on Donald Trump and mocking Charlie Kirk after Kirk’s assassination.

Santan is not a man who randomly snapped. His actions were those of a politically motivated individual who directed his fury at a news organization following left-wing protests over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension. The attack was, in every sense, political violence.

Yet the same outlets that dedicate days of coverage to “right-wing threats” couldn’t spare more than a passing mention here. The hypocrisy is staggering. When violence fits their narrative, it’s headline news. When it doesn’t, it disappears.

Perhaps more disturbing than the media blackout is the response from California officials. After Santana’s arrest, he was allowed to post bail—despite firing into a building full of journalists. For politicians who never tire of lecturing about “common-sense gun laws,” the silence was deafening.

Releasing an armed political extremist back onto the streets is not “justice reform.” It’s negligence, coddling, and a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the danger posed when violent activists are treated as harmless simply because their politics align with those in power.

Only when the federal Department of Justice intervened was Santana taken back into custody under federal charges for interfering with a licensed broadcaster through violence. If not for that, he might still be free today.

The case highlights a broader problem: America’s media is a gatekeeper of narratives rather than a seeker of truth. The press leaps to cover shootings when the suspect might be conservative, Republican, or a Second Amendment advocate, even making it up, as in the case of CNN and MSNBC. But when the attacker is a left-wing union lobbyist with ties to California’s political elite? Silence.

The silence isn’t harmless. By refusing to acknowledge violence when it comes from the left, journalists create a warped perception of reality. The public gets told over and over that political violence is a one-sided problem, when in fact it isn’t.

Even more ironic is that journalists themselves were the victims here. An ABC affiliate got targeted with gunfire. Yet the same media class that usually rushes to play the role of martyr chose to bury the story because it didn’t fit their preferred storyline.

There’s a bitter irony in watching media outlets coddle pro-crime politicians and then becoming victims of the very lawlessness they excuse. It’s reminiscent of the San Francisco crew whose news van got burglarized while they were covering thefts in the city. They were shocked—shocked!—that criminals would target them.

But why wouldn’t they? Reporters have spent years pushing the narrative that criminals are victims of circumstance, that law enforcement is oppressive, and that bail reform is “compassionate.” Now, those same policies put journalists in the line of fire. Literally.

Yet even after being targeted, the press can’t bring itself to confront the ideology that fuels this violence. Instead, the media retreats into silence, protecting the very forces that endangered them.

This story isn’t just about one man with a gun. It’s about the culture of cowardice that dominates California politics and media alike. It’s about a system where violent extremists are given second chances because of their political affiliations. It’s about a press corps so beholden to partisan narratives that it cannot even defend its own colleagues when violently attacked.

The public deserves honesty. Political violence is unacceptable, whether it comes from the right or the left. But until the media acknowledges that fact, we will continue to live in a distorted reality where some victims get mourned loudly while others get brushed aside.

Journalists should be the loudest voices demanding accountability in this case. Instead, they’ve gone quiet. Politicians should be outraged that a politically connected activist opened fire on a news station. Instead, they rushed him through the revolving door of California’s broken justice system.

The question isn’t just why this story disappeared—it’s why we allow such disappearances to happen at all. A free press that suppresses inconvenient truths is no free press at all.

Until the media stops sweeping inconvenient facts under the rug, and until politicians stop excusing criminals who share their ideology, incidents like this will continue. Next time, we might not be so fortunate, and someone could be injured, or worse.