For those who didn’t know because of the lack of journalistic integrity, on March 19, Sheridan Gorman walked onto a pier near Loyola University Chicago with a group of friends to try to see the northern lights. She was eighteen years old, a business student, a member of her campus Christian fellowship. Her friends described her as someone who made people feel seen. A masked gunman emerged from the shadows and shot her in the back as she fled. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The suspect, José Medina, is a 25-year-old Venezuelan national. He entered the United States illegally in May 2023, was apprehended by Border Patrol, and released. Two months later he was arrested for shoplifting in Chicago. He was released again. He had an active warrant in that theft case on the morning he allegedly shot Sheridan Gorman in the back. I just gave this story more time than the media.
Breathe easy, America. The guardians of democracy — your trusted network news anchors, those steely-eyed truth-tellers who have never once let narrative get in the way of facts — have finally weighed in on the murder of Sheridan Gorman.
CBS gave it 32 seconds.
NBC mustered 23.
Take a moment. Let the thoroughness of that wash over you.
Twenty-three seconds. That’s roughly how long it takes to read a tweet. It’s less time than most people spend deciding between regular and decaf. It is, apparently, the precise journational value of an 18-year-old girl shot in the back on a Chicago pier while trying to see the northern lights.
But before you get any funny ideas about media bias, let’s be fair. The networks had a lot going on. There is a war. I get it and it should take up most of the space. The truth is it wouldn’t matter. There were important stories to cover. Climate. Democracy, Gas. The existential threat of whatever the Republican Party did that particular Tuesday. You can’t just go throwing college freshmen into the rundown willy-nilly.
Now, you may be wondering: how did the same networks find 121 minutes to cover the death of Renee Good just two months earlier?
Excellent question. I did some research. The answer is simple: that story had the right ingredients. Federal agents. Protesters. Dramatic footage. A narrative about government overreach that practically wrote itself. The networks covered it from every angle — the grief, the politics, the implications, the vibes. Governor Pritzker flew to Minneapolis to lay flowers at the memorial and document the whole thing for social media. Nobody could accuse anyone of underreacting.
Sheridan Gorman, meanwhile, had the misfortune of being murdered in a way that raised inconvenient questions. Let’s remember and I repeat the suspect, a Venezuelan national who had been caught at the border, released, arrested for shoplifting, and released again — with an active warrant, by the way, outstanding at the time of the killing — did not fit neatly into the preferred story of 2026. So the networks did what any responsible journalistic institution would do: They covered it in the middle of the night, on shows nobody watches, and hoped you’d go back to sleep.
To be fair to the alderman, (Honestly I had never heard of an alderman) whose ward the murder occurred in, she did act swiftly. Before the suspect was even identified, Alderwoman Maria Hadden went on the tube to get her moment to brilliantly float the theory that Gorman and her friends might have startled the man who shot her. Startled a man with a gun in one of the most strictest cities in America when it comes to gun ownership? Startled him? Seriously?
The masked gunman, lurking at the end of a pier at 1:30 in the morning, armed with a .40 caliber handgun, apparently did not anticipate that a group of college students might appear on a pier near a university. Who could have predicted that? Frankly, if you think about it, the real victim here is the guy who was just standing there in the dark with a mask and a gun, minding his own business, when a pack of freshmen came barreling around the corner. Startled. Could happen to anyone.
Presidential hopeful, Governor JB Pritzker, to his credit, has been consistent. He said nothing about Sheridan Gorman. Not a word. Not a statement of condolence. Not a “thoughts and prayers,” that lowest of low bars that even the most spineless politicians manage to clear. Radio silence, from a man who is never otherwise short of things to say.
He did, however, in September 2025, post a warm and enthusiastic video of the Chicago lakeside ,the very path near where Gorman would be murdered, calling it “absolutely gorgeous.”
Which it is. Stunning, really. Highly recommended. Just maybe not at 1:30 a.m. — unless, of course, you’d like to be startling someone.
Sheridan Gorman was walking with friends. She spotted the gunman. She ran. She was shot in the back. She was eighteen years old, a business student, a girl her family described as someone who made everyone around her feel seen and valued.
Here is what the networks decided that was worth: less time than a fast-food commercial.
Here is what a story confirming the preferred worldview is worth: 121 minutes, anchor stand-ups, gubernatorial flower-laying, and a poem from the nation’s Youth Poet Laureate.
We’re not saying there’s a double standard. We would never say that.
We’re just saying that if you’re going to get murdered and you’d like the networks to notice, you might want to check the narrative calendar first.
There will be “No Kings” protest this weekend and the usual suspects will be there. The press will be all over it devoting many minutes like they did at the first two because nothing says “we’re defeating authoritarianism” doing the exact same thing for the third time and hoping this is the one that really sticks. The press isn’t ignoring her — the coverage exists by the seconds they have devoted but there won’t be any Joan Baez songs……thank God. Dave Matthews won’t be on Jimmy Kimmel Show singing about her. There is no Bruce Springsteen writing “Streets of Rogers Park.”
Sheridan Gorman deserved so much more than the seconds she received. In life and in death.
Reflections Of A Gasbag 