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'Sandy Hook' author depicts a tragedy first of gun violence, then of disinformation

Penguin Random House
/
Beowulf Sheehan

Editor's note: This conversation originally aired March 31, 2022.

Another unspeakable American tragedy. On Tuesday, a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Texas, killing at least 18 children and a teacher. It is heartbreakingly familiar.

In 2012, a gunman took the lives of children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary. That was ten years ago. Since then, scores of individuals have inflicted continuing pain on the families of those who lost their lives there.

Sandy Hook spawned what our guest calls “an online circle of people impermeable and hostile to reality,” a subset of our population that seems to be growing.

Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer for The New York Times, joins us to discuss how the Sandy Hook tragedy became fodder for conspiracy theorists and what might be done to stem the ongoing flow of disinformation.

Guest

Elizabeth Williamson, feature writer for The New York Times and author of “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth

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Jesse Steinmetz is Producer of Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins. Before joining WFAE in 2019, he was an intern at WNPR in Hartford, Connecticut and hosted a show at Eastern Connecticut State University.