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Conflict & Security75 outlets ran this3 min read

Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students

Jason Eaton claims CIA and Mossad ordered him to shoot, while prosecutors argue he acted with intent.

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published Updated
Jason Eaton watches as Hisham Awartani arrives to testify in Eaton's trial in Burlington, Vt., Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (Glenn Russell/Pool photo via AP) (Glenn Russell) (Glenn Russell/Glenn Russell/VTDigger via AP)

What this story says

  • Jason Eaton, 51, is on trial in Burlington, Vermont, for the attempted second-degree murder of three Palestinian college students.
  • Eaton claims he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad, receiving messages via FM radio.
  • Authorities found shotguns and a Ruger .380 handgun in Eaton's apartment, with crime-lab testing identifying the handgun as the weapon used.
  • The three victims, Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid, were 20 at the time of the November 2023 shooting and are now 23.

Who covered it

Left 39%(21)Centre 46%(42)Right 15%(11)

Percentages are shares of the 74 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 75 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

76/100

Craft

95/100

Hype

15/100

75 sources · methodology

Missing from the right

Only 11 of the 74 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.

A reader who follows the right would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

Jason Eaton is on trial in Burlington, Vermont, for the attempted second-degree murder of three Palestinian college students. The incident occurred in November 2023. Eaton, now 51, has pleaded not guilty. The three victims, Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid, were 20 years old at the time of the shooting and are now 23.

Eaton's defense is centered on an insanity plea, with his attorneys arguing he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder. They claim he believed he was receiving orders from the CIA and Mossad via FM radio, and that God commanded him to protect his Jewish neighbors. The defense stated that Eaton believed he was acting on instructions and could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct.

Prosecutors, however, are presenting evidence that Eaton intended to kill the men and was not legally insane. Authorities found three shotguns and a Ruger .380 handgun in Eaton's apartment. Crime-lab testing identified the handgun as the weapon used in the shooting. The prosecutor stated that a state psychiatrist concluded Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect that would qualify as legal insanity.

Disagreement on mental state

Eaton's defense attorneys told jurors that he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder and believed he was receiving messages from the CIA and Mossad via FM radio, which commanded him to shoot. Conversely, a state psychiatrist slated to testify concluded that Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect and that evidence would show he intended to kill the men, according to the prosecutor.

What the coverage left out

None of the right-rated digests mention the specific details of the victims' injuries or the fact that one victim is now paralyzed from the waist down. The right-rated digests also do not mention the specific types of firearms found in Eaton's apartment or that crime-lab testing identified the handgun as the weapon used.

Tags:#JasonEaton#VermontShooting#Trial#InsanityDefense#PalestinianStudents#AttemptedMurder

Coverage settled. We checked this 17 times and stopped on 20 Sept 2026, 05:30. The figures above are what it finished at.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

21 rated outlets

  • Nine left-rated reports led on the trial of Jason Eaton for the attempted murder of three Palestinian college students. These reports highlighted Eaton's claim that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad, transmitted via FM radio, and that God commanded him to protect his Jewish neighbors. The digests noted that the victims were Palestinian students and mentioned their ages at the time of the shooting and their current ages. Some digests specified that Eaton pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and that the trial would hinge on expert testimony regarding his state of mind. One digest mentioned the victims' surprise appearance at the trial.

Centre

42 rated outlets

  • All twelve centre‑rated outlets published a story about Jason Eaton’s trial for shooting three Palestinian students, and each headline referenced his claim that the CIA and Mossad directed him. The digests uniformly noted his allegation that intelligence messages were received via FM radio.
  • WPLG’s full report added victim names, the November 2023 shooting date, the weapons seized, and quotations from defense lawyer Joshua O’Hara and prosecutor Sally Adams about Eaton’s mental state and legal standards. WCAX’s full report described courtroom streaming, Judge John Pacht’s order to remove keffiyehs, and victim testimony.
  • The digests omitted the victims’ identities, the judge’s keffiyeh directive, the ATF agent’s observations, and the detailed weapon description that appear in the full reports. None of the centre digests mentioned the broader Israel‑Hamas war context or any hate‑crime investigation status.

Right

11 rated outlets

  • Two right-rated reports covered the trial of Jason Eaton for the shooting of three Palestinian college students. Both digests stated that Eaton insisted he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad when he shot the students, and that he said U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted messages to him via FM radio, with God commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors. One digest also included unrelated local headlines about a store robbery, a car hitting a business, and the Vermont Almanac not publishing a seventh edition.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students?
Of the 74 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 39% are rated left, 46% are rated centre, 15% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 75. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 74 rated outlets on this story, 39% are rated left, 46% are rated centre, 15% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students biased?
Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students is one event reported by 75 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Vermont man on trial for shooting Palestinian students?
75 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
Who is Jason Eaton and what is he accused of?
Jason Eaton, 51, is on trial in Burlington, Vermont, for the attempted second-degree murder of three Palestinian college students. He is accused of shooting Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad, and Kinnan Abdalhamid in November 2023.
What is Jason Eaton's defense?
Eaton's defense is based on an insanity plea. His attorneys argue that he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder and believed he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad, transmitted via FM radio, and that God commanded him to act.
What do prosecutors say about Eaton's mental state?
Prosecutors contend that Eaton intended to kill the men and was not legally insane. They plan to present evidence from a state psychiatrist who concluded that Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect that would qualify as legal insanity.
What evidence was found at Eaton's apartment?
Authorities found three shotguns and a Ruger .380 handgun in Jason Eaton's apartment. Crime-lab testing identified the handgun as the weapon used in the shooting of the three students.

Read it at the source

75 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

21
Show 13 more

Centre

42
Show 34 more

Right

11
Show 3 more

Not rated

1

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

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