Cable news was set ablaze on Friday when the landlord of San Bernardino shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik surprised reporters by letting them into the apartment of the apparent terrorists.
“This is kind of bizarre, this whole thing,” Anderson Cooper says about reporters being invited into the unit so soon after the massacre.
On CNN, law enforcement analyst Harry Houk was shocked: “I’m having chills down my spine with what I’m seeing here. This apartment clearly is full of evidence.”
Network reporter Stephanie Elam took Anderson Cooper through what was in the house, including prayer books and beads, photos, passports, drivers licenses, stickers, luggage and scattered paperwork.
Elam pointed to a hole in the ceiling made by police. “They smashed up into the ceiling to see what was up there,” she said.
On MSNBC, a dumfounded Andrea Mitchell spoke with presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, who called it “beyond bizarre” that law enforcement was allowing media into the shooters’ home.
“I don’t understand why, even after the FBI search, this wasn’t shut out,” Mitchell said.
Twitter users are comparing the access to a 2014 Jake Gyllenhaal drama “Nightcrawler,” which was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar. In writer-director Dan Gilroy’s film, Gyllenhaal’s character — an aspiring crime scene reporter with zero ethics — stumbles upon a brutal murder and enters the home with a camera to capture video before even alerting the authorities.
Obviously what's happening on cable news is gross, but if it leads more people to watch NIGHTCRAWLER that'd at least be a positive outcome.
– David Roth (@david_j_roth) December 4, 2015
MSNBC: Your leading source for "Nightcrawler" outtakes.
– Chris Lehmann (@lehmannchris) December 4, 2015
White House press secretary Josh Earnest declined to comment at a Friday press conference regarding the appropriateness of media being allowed to enter the killers’ home.