Good morning. Jessica Mathews here, filling in for Andrew Nusca.
I’ve been trying to stay off social media these past few days—as much as I can as a journalist. On Thursday, a video popped up on my X feed, displaying the very moment that political activist Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck as he sat on a stool onstage at a college campus, talking with students and observers. There was no warning, no prompt before the video started playing—only an instant replay of the exact moment of gory violence that would immediately make waves around the country and the world. The video was entirely unexpected, and it momentarily paralyzed me, leaving me unsettled and struggling to focus on the rest of the workday.
