Reuters Editor Blames Trump For MD Shooting: 'Blood on Your Hands'

Rob Cox, Global Editor for Thomson Reuters’ Breakingviews vertical, said the Capital Gazette newspaper shooting was a direct response to President Donald Trump’s criticism of the mainstream media.

“This is what happens when @realDonaldTrump calls journalists the enemy of the people,” Cox tweeted following the shooting. “Blood is on your hands, Mr. President. Save your thoughts and prayers for your empty soul.”

UPDATE: Cox has since deleted the tweet and acknowledges “jumping to a conclusion.”

UPDATE #2: Still hours later, Cox tweets an apology and a concession that his comments “were not in keeping with the Reuters Trust Principles.”

Law enforcement confirmed at least 5 people are dead and 7 others are injured after a suspect gunman opened fire inside the Capital Gazette’s newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. Neither that information nor further details on the suspect were confirmed at the time of Cox’s post.

“Rob Cox helped found Breakingviews.com in 2000 in London. From 2004 he spearheaded the publication’s expansion in the United States and edited daily Breakingviews columns in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal,” according to his biography. “Rob has worked as a financial journalist in London, Milan, New York, Washington, Chicago, and Tokyo. Rob was named Global Editor of Breakingviews in December 2012, three years after it was acquired by Thomson Reuters.”