Previously, if one wanted to head down to the Gospel Coalition and search for the article ‘Why I hate August”- the one which described Kyle Rittenhouse as an “armed mass shooter” – You could do it. It was possible. Simply type it into the search bar and it would appear.
Now, however, it is suspiciously absent.
This is not how it always has been. We know this for a fact because this is how we found the article over the last 15 months- running the search through the main site.
Several days ago, however, the TGC has offered a small update to the article, removing the word ‘mass’ to their description of Kyle as a mass shooter, but otherwise leaving the rest alone. Even after Editor-in-Chief Collin Hansen reviewed the whole thing, they kept in the most egregious parts, ensuring he is still compared to the true mass shooter Dylan Roof, who killed nine people in a church. In fact, they never even updated to add a note that he’d been acquitted of the two lives he did take in self-defense.
Around the same time they edited the article, they also made the deliberate decision to alter its accessibility and make it more difficult to find. Other terms like ‘Rittenhouse’, ‘Jacob Blake’ and ‘Kenosha’ likewise turn up nothing.
The article is ultimately still there- you have to get it in a roundabout way now. Searching for the name of the author first- in this case K. Edward Copeland, a former council member whose name is not well known, and who only wrote one article in the least 5 years, and then seeing the article that way.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to find it. And if it was the case of the site always having terrible search functionality and the article never being searchable- it would be a non-issue. It is the fact that it was previously easily findable and now is not, that is at the center of the controversy.
This is poor form on the behalf of TGC, and we’re not about to let up until we receive some answers.
