First on MRC: Just minutes after Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on stage in Utah, Apple News highlighted an article from The Guardian that smeared him as a “right-wing activist” and called him a “Trump ally.” The piece shamelessly asked readers for cash to help the paper not “bow” to President Donald Trump.
The Guardian has since pulled the fundraiser section, only after the Media Research Center reached out for comment, one hour after MRC first noticed it.
“These fundraising appeals appear automatically on all articles we publish in the United States. We have now removed them from any content related to this deeply disturbing event,” Matt Mittenthal, the head of communications for The Guardian US, wrote in a statement.
The Guardian’s sickening article was featured on Apple News as of 3:18 p.m. ET under the headline “Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shot during event at Utah university.” It didn’t just diminish the gravity of the shooting. It also tacked on an open letter from Guardian US editor Betsy Reed begging for donations: “Why you can rely on the Guardian not to bow to Trump or anyone.”
The grotesque plea came as Kirk was shot in the neck while reportedly speaking of transgender violence at Utah Valley University on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s unconscionable that The Guardian would be fundraising off of such a tragic event,” said MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider. “That Apple News would push such a left-wing rag is sadly par for the course for leftist news aggregators.”
The gruesome shooting targeting Kirk came just a year after Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Republican president escaped a second attempt on his life less than a month later.
Incredibly, the fundraising appeal appeared at the bottom of a mobile version of the piece, “I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask whether you could support the Guardian’s journalism as we face the unprecedented challenges of covering the second Trump administration.”
It went on to declare: “The Guardian is clear: we have no interest in being Donald Trump’s - or any politician’s friend. Our allegiance as independent journalists is not to those in power but to the public.”
The Guardian removed this section by 4:30 p.m., after the MRC inquired if it considered it appropriate. Apple News also updated its headline, now calling Kirk a "conservative activist."
Apple News did not immediately return MRC’s request for comment.
Charlie Kirk was a member of the MRC Free Speech America Board of Advisors.
