Fake News: NO Media Silence About Woman Stabbed 14 Times in Minnesota

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: NO Media Silence About Woman Stabbed 14 Times in Minnesota

Did "not a drop of media coverage" happen about a woman who was stabbed 14 times in Minnesota? And is the media covering up the fact that the attacker was a muslim refugee? No, that's not true: several media outlets reported about the 2017 attack and described the assailant as likely being from Somali descent. However his exact identity remains unknown since he wasn't arrested yet so anyone claiming to know his religion or citizen/refugee status is just speculating. The story is often recycled by sites that are part of a commercially driven fake news network from Macedonia.

It recently went viral again through an article published by Tapainfo on November 23, 2018 titled "SILENCE: Muslim refugee stabs woman 14 times in Minnesota, and not a drop of media coverage came out of it - tapainfo.com" (archived here) which opened:

The Minneapolis papers have ignored this story, and the only identification of the attacker as a Somali Muslim migrant comes toward the end of this video report. The Minneapolis media seems determined to ensure that no one get a negative impression of the Muslim migrants as they continue ...

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

SILENCE: Muslim refugee stabs woman 14 times in Minnesota, and not a drop of media coverage came out of it - tapainfo.com

The Minneapolis papers have ignored this story, and the only identification of the attacker as a Somali Muslim migrant comes toward the end of this video report. The Minneapolis media seems determined to ensure that no one get a negative impression of the Muslim migrants as they continue ...

The story was basically copied verbatim from a December 2017 Jihad Watch article by controversial right-wing author Robert Spencer:

Minneapolis: Muslim migrant stabs woman 14 times, local media ignores incident

The Minneapolis papers have ignored this story, and the only identification of the attacker as a Somali Muslim migrant comes toward the end of this video report. The Minneapolis media seems determined to ensure that no one get a negative impression of the Muslim migrants as they continue to flow into the area in large...

Local media clearly did not ignore the incident:

Woman Stabbed 14 Times Speaks About Ordeal

Evenson told KSTP she struggled with her attacker at the corner of 32nd Street and Fremont Avenue and she considers herself lucky to be alive. "It was horrifying, because I could feel something that felt like it was stinging me, but it was him stabbing me," she said.

Man who stabbed woman repeatedly in Uptown street attack remains a fugitive

Whoever stabbed a 27-year-old woman more than a dozen times in the bustling Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis remains a fugitive more than three weeks after the nighttime street attack. Morgan Evenson said Thursday that she was walking home about 8:30 p.m. on Dec.

Weeks later with no arrests, Uptown stabbing leaves residents feeling uneasy

A Minneapolis woman survived a gruesome knife attack in the Uptown neighborhood, and there are still no arrests in the case. Now, people living in the area are on high alert as police chase down leads. Women, especially, have said they feel like targets. Since the Dec.

The stories all mention the perpetrator of the December 13, 2017 attack has still not been identified but the victim is quoted giving a description of the man:

Evenson said she got a very clear look at the suspect as she struggled with him for a few minutes. She describes him as a thin, Somali man in his early twenties with a slight accent and short, afro-style hair.

Neither she nor the police made any comments about his (possible) religion or refugee status.

NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes tapainfo.com as:

One of more than forty sites in a network, all registered in Macedonia, that publish false and plagiarized stories, primarily promoting anti-Muslim and pro-Trump narratives.

According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.

Tapainfo.com is part of a larger network of Macedonian fake news sites that endlessly recycles the same hoaxes over and over again on new websites:

Old Network of Anti-Islam Fake News Websites Turns To Twitter Trolling | Lead Stories

Tara, Jesica, Ana, Lora: since a few weeks dozens of trolls on Twitter are dangling bait in front of American Trump supporters. Their goal: bring in as many clicks as possible for two commercial, (potentially Serbian) anti-islam websites. And it is working: in twelve days they reached a potential audience on Facebook of 3.8 milion users.

If you see stories from this network: don't like or share them, even if you agree with the sentiment. The people behind these sites are trying to abuse people's emotions in order to rake in advertising cash with old, stolen articles. Don't fall victim to them.

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See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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