On early Sunday morning in Austin, Texas, a gunman fired into crowds of pedestrians from his moving vehicle, wounding 14 people and ultimately killing three. The shooter, Ndiaga Diagne, a Muslim immigrant from Senegal, was wearing a hoodie that read, “Property of Allah.”
Left-wing cable networks CNN and MS NOW have reported all of the above details at least once — all except the fact that Diagne was a Muslim.
MRC analysts looked at all coverage on CNN and MSNOW of the March 1, 2026 shooting in Austin, Texas, from the day it happened through the end of March 3. In that time, not a single on-air personality on either network bothered to identify Diagne’s Muslim faith.
In fact, both networks seemed eager to drop the issue of the shooting entirely. By Tuesday, March 3, the story had disappeared, save for one segment on CNN during the 5:00 a.m. ET hour.
MS NOW covered the shooting just four times, for a total of less than ten minutes (9 minutes and 50 seconds). During those four segments, Diagne’s “Property of Allah” sweatshirt went unmentioned, and he was identified as an immigrant only once.
On CNN, the story received a more respectable 22 minutes of airtime. During that coverage, Diagne’s status as a naturalized citizen was brought up five times, and his “Allah” hoodie saw three mentions. But even with those references to the obvious religious messaging on his clothing, nobody on CNN could bring themselves to utter the words, “Muslim,” “Islam,” or similar permutation.
Both CNN and MS NOW had reporters on the ground in Austin on Tuesday, the same day that the story evaporated from left-wing cable news. However, those journalists were there to cover the primary elections happening across the state.
