“But death tolls doesn’t tell the whole story,” the reporter intones. And then doesn’t say word one about defensive gun use. Why is that? Why is the mainstream media so willing to wave the bloody shirt and tug on the audience’s heartstrings about shooting victims but completely ignore stories of people who save their lives—and/or the lives of their loved ones—with a firearm? Sure, it’s nice to throw in a pro-gun sound bite but what about an emotionally balanced approach? With so many defensive gun use stories on line (click on DGU above) I can only conclude that reporters are willfully biased. So . . . what gives with these people?
Surprisingly, the MSM doesn’t seem to understand that when all the guns are taken away and violence ceases to exist (/sarc), they’l all be out of a job (except for an occasional weather and sports guy). They won’t have anything to report. The public won’t tolerate “happiness” stories all the time.
You’re suggesting people don’t tune in to hear NICEY NICE stories? (sarcasm)
What do you think “Entertainment News” is for? Why report on real news when you can obsess over useless celebrity gossip?
The MSM is just a puppet of the Fascist party err Democratic party!
The REPUBLICRAT fascist party. One coin. Two sides. If you don’t like this side, we’ve another one just like it on the flipside.
This is something ignored all too often. Any “party” or collective groupthink inevitably turns tyrranical. Lose the individual, and liberty fades.
Both parties are fighting to see who gets the power to spend the money. It’s the CASSSHHHH stupid!
We are talking about the media here. They are OVERWHELMINGLY liberal, and in the tank for BARRY and the boyz.
Hello!
You are only pointing out universal truisms like: “If it bleeds, it leads”. So called Journalists and the like have been brainwashed since before they hit the ‘soft education’ of the leftist, ivory tower, America-hating activist professors.
Fox news and AM radio are an island in a sea of libtard stupidity. Stop saying “Duh huh there all da same”.
Sure says something about the folks who want to be reporters and writers, not to say editors doesn’t it? Or does it say more about the people who own the networks personal beliefs, and hiring people with the same beliefs to actually run things, and it trickles down from there.
It’s not even necessarily about personal beliefs, but about serving those they’re brib… er, paid to serve. But I guess it’s helpful if one can reconcile one’s beliefs with Master’s.
Belief isn’t in it, really. The press was first infiltrated by the CIA in the fifties – you can look this up – and the CIA is controlled by the Bankster Elite. This stuff really isn’t hard to figure out.
I don’t understand. How could gun violence exist in Chicago?
There, in Chicago, exist some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation yet there is still gun violence?
It boggles the mind!
The #1 reason reporters give for choosing that profession is “to change the world”. Back when most of the editors in chief were entering the profession, that meant “to be liberal”.
Also, I suspect a number of reporters honestly couldn’t find work elsewhere.
“to change the world”. Oops, just barfed all over the keyboard. When’s the last time any of these presstitutes tried to change ANYTHING for the better? They’re slipper-fetchers. For you-know-who.
“Gun violence” equates like this in the media (and too much of the public mind): GUNS=VIOLENCE. THIS is the perception, more than any other, that we need to change. I have NO IDEA how we can accomplish this; they’ve done their job well because we can’t marshal an effective counterstrike. Plus, we’re not the media.
Why are they biased against gun ownership, you ask? BANKSTERS. LAP. LITTLE DOG. Media NICE doggie. Pat on head. Wag tail.
‘What gives with these people? ”
The agenda is clear – complete and total civil disarmament.
+1. Make the Master happy, and glory and riches will follow. Don’t mess with established system. BAD things happen.
EXACTLY! The ones pushing this agenda want complete and total civilian disarmament. The ones going along like your anti – gun friend, family member, neighbor are useful idiots that don’t understand the issue. They are easily manipulated emotional basket cases that have been led down this path from years of public school indoctrination and the constant bleat of the MSM.
Lance already nailed it. The MSM is against guns because the party tells them to be against guns. If the Democrats were in favor of guns, the MSM would be in favor of guns. The media is just part of the Democrat party machinery.
Crushing American gun rights is an important part of Democrat orthodoxy. The nation’s dominant political party controls the media, and the media control the message. That’s why we have to struggle to be heard.
With so much firepower leveled at us, you might wonder why are we still very much in game, taking losses here and there but also achieveing great gains. I don’t know the answer, but maybe it’s true. Maybe you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
I think a good reason that we are still “in game” is the Internet. Seems more people are tuning in to the web vs their TVs, with the hope of finding truth vs spin. Being interactive, you can sometimes question a story without blind acceptance. At least I hope that’s the reason.
It’s gotten so that the few times I watch TV MSM “news”, I’m counting the reporter’s eye-blinks. (we’ll see who catches the movie reference first). 😉
V for Vendetta. Nataile Portman talks about her co-worker who blinks too much when she’s telling a story that isn’t true.
It seems the media has done some selective editing. This looks exactly like something I saw back in the ’80s, only instead of “gun violence,” the shootings were called “gang violence.” Seriously, is it the everyday gun owner causing all this trouble? Nobody asks, “Who is doing the shooting?” All the focus on is, “Is there a gun in your home?” (As if that alone is a danger.) It’s not only bias, but flawed scientific methodology.
Reading “Bias” and “Arrogance” by Bernard Goldberg, former CBS reporter. Recommended.
Great books! +1
They cost Goldberg dearly. The only person who would give him a job was Bryant Gumbel. I think Gumbel can be a real horse’s patoot, but I gotta give him props where props are due.
Read them, excellent and a must read for anyone who thinks there is no bias in the media.
I once read an article about British gun control laws.In it ,they cited press articles from the early 1900s which eerily resemble modern day articles.The passing of pistol permits in England resulted from articles claiming blood was running in the streets from Assault Weapons.The assault weapon in question? The six shot Nagant revolver.
We can’t lay the bias of our media at the feet of the Dems exclusively,as Englands example proves.Rather,simple self interest is why the media hates us guns owners and our tools.
Bad News sells,period. Its not exactly sensational news when a single bad guy meets his end via an AR15.People read that,go “good riddance” and move on.
Now,if we spin the same story to say “Assault Weapon Used to KILL MINORITY HONOR STUDENT” ,now everyone wants to weigh in on the issue.Throw in some quotes by the resident Democrat senator,toss in a fancy biased poll showing people want more gun control,and wait for the Pulitzers and public awareness speeches to roll in.Bonus points if you can influence a state or Federal government to change the law based on your hit piece!
Write the story honestly, and none of that happens.
So long as the media keeps being rewarded financially and socially for opposing gun rights,that’s exactly what they’ll keep doing.
Nemo Arms tells the government of NY that it cannot buy its $100,000 titanium AR 308.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=607395575942025&set=pb.345155042166081.-2207520000.1361649458&type=3&theater
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SMACKEROOS. The police force that would spend that much taxpayer money for ONE rifle deserves to be disbanded and scattered to the winds.
Now “IF” the police were a private force owned by the stinking rich elite (yeah, THAT’D never happen), it’s justifiable. But we know who the police are paid to protect, don’t we?
🙂 I could see the governor of NY authorizing his state to buy one of these $100K guns…for his home of course. Do you recall Janet Reno being publicly busted or outed after her house was robbed and two ARs stolen? I think that occurred after she left office.
There are the royal elites and then there are the rest of us.
I see they are taking liberty with numbers just like everyone else.
To quote the video “31,000 people die from GUN VIOLENCE every year”
No, get the facts straight, not all gun deaths are from violent acts. Less than HALF that number are homicides, which I would consider the only violent utilization of a gun. Accident & suicides don’t count in my book.
It’s all part if warping perceptions and twisting facts to fit their personal, narrow world view.
To fit their bosses’ world view. Fixed that for you. They’d adopt WHATEVER the bosses’ world view happened to be.
Things go much smoother that way. Personally, I don’t believe the press has views that are solely their own. What the boss wants, they want.
I worked, for nearly thirteen years, at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. NOT in news or editorial, but I got what would be generally considered an “insider view”. Back then, Richmond was (or was perceived to be) a very old money, conservative town. If the town had been predominantly liberal/progressive, I can ASSURE YOU the newspaper would reflect that in their “views”. But they were pretending to believe what most people in the area believed. Or that they thought they believed.
Well, suicide is an act of violence… But it’s self-inflicted violence, which is an entirely different kettle of fish than violence perpetrated on someone against their will.
The cultural war against fathers (men and boys) is a national health crisis. The feminist-driven national social-cultural cheer leading encouragement for women (and girls) to go be independent and to have per-marital sex is the major push behind the crisis. 70% of black women are single. Almost all single parent black families are headed up by a single mother. The tragic result is the violence in the inner cities.
Well said. Unfortunately, your statement carries far too much truth for politicians and the MSM. Rather than address the true cause of the problems facing society, people choose to look in every which direction except for the one right in front of their noses.
Question: Who do boys look up to as role models today? When my father was growing up it was John Wayne, Josey Wales and Jeremiah Johnson. The rugged individual. Now, who is it?
You didn’t mention drugs. The problem isn’t the drugs, but that in poor sections of cities and towns, selling drugs is the only way to get over. With selling drugs goes taking them, and the other way around. It’s predictable that guns enter that system like stink on oo-poo-pa-doo.
Is there war on fathers and men? ABSOLUTELY. But this has expanded of late. Now it’s war on WHITE PEOPLE. “White people” = gun owners = “racists”. It’s so obvious what they’re doing. They’re doing their best to foster the perception that gun owners are the KKK. And terrorists to boot.
I love how the ‘reporter’ keeps saying “gun violence” this and “gun violence” that. It’s gang violence you dumb b*tch. The tool is irrelevant.
I guess you really can’t fix stupid…especially if it has an agenda.
They know it’s gang violence, but that doesn’t fit their narrative so they rewrite it as “gun violence.” Why? Because gangs are composed almost entirely of inner city yoots. And we can’t blame the inner city yoots, we have to blame the 2nd Amendment abiding states hundreds of miles away. Riddle me this….if Vermont’s liberal gun laws are the source of “gun violence” in Boston and New York City, then why the heck doesn’t Vermont look like a war zone? Why is it among the safest states in the country?
Armed Americans are the final impediment to the Utopia promised to journalism students.
The “news” hasn’t been about the news for a long time now. The MSM is more about entertainment than anything. News networks get their ratings by reporting violent events which we, as a society, gobble up. The more tragic and horrific an event is, the more attention it will get (“if it bleeds, it leads”). DGU’s are boring in the eyes of the MSM because they are cut and dry: good guy shoots bad guy, justice is served, the end. Ultimately, this creates a situation where you only see and hear one perspective, and since all of the MSM reads off the same script, the sheeple are beaten over the head with the views of the MSM. Furthermore, the sheeple don’t seek out alternative news sources because they’re “too boring”. Thus, you end up with an indoctrinated society.
Has anyone here ever stepped foot into a news studio and seen how things work behind the scenes? It must be a very interesting experience. I’d wager the environment in such a place would be like going back in time to the 60’s.
A defensive gun use – especially examples where the perpetrator is detained by a private citizen where shots were not fired – are not sensational enough to be news worthily. Anyway, the defensive gun uses that did involve a weapons discharge (such as in Oklahoma and Georgia) were not necessarily given “front page” exposure. The media has forgotten about the basic principles of journalism (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) a long time ago, and has degenerated into advertising for the current political elite.
Ah, Nazgul, you remembered Kipling’s six faithful serving men. Good for you. Kipling taught me how to do a cross-examination.
I keep six faithful serving men
They taught me all I knew
There names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Thanks Ralph. I have my moments… 🙂
Because they think they know better.
I used to think it was bias. Now I think it’s not that benign. First, much of the media are herd animals. Just flip through the channels some night, and you’ll think the same toad in a basement is writing the material for each network.
But it’s gone beyond biased reporting. Now they see themselves as active crusaders on a particular side of politics and the culture wars. They are not a free press anymore. They’ve chained themselves to a political agenda where the the truth gets in their way as often as not, and they’ve willingly reduced themselves to propaganda organs of their favored political party.
Yep. Ain’t no doubt about that.
I remember watching an interview with a report who talked about the news paper he worked for once had a policy of being “constantly outraged”. I wondered how in the world are they supposed to report the truth if every story has to have a demeanor of outrage. That was years ago and my first exposure to media bias.
Stephen Hunter, the author of I, Sniper, said it much better than I can:
Stephen Hunter on “The Narrative:”
You do not fight the narrative. The narrative will destroy you. The narrative is all-powerful. The narrative rules. It rules us, it rules Washington, it rules everything.
—
The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It’s so powerful because it’s unconscious. It’s not like they get together every morning and decide “These are the lies we will tell today.” No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it’s a set of casual, nonrigorous assumptions about a reality they’ve never really experienced that’s arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they’ve chosen to live their lives. It’s a way of arranging things a certain way that they all believe in without ever really addressing carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They know, for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama is a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They know that Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was fucked up…. Cheney’s a devil. Biden’s a genius. Soft power good, hard power bad. Forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive, capital punishment a sin.
—
And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don’t even know they’re true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin’-stroy anybody who makes them question that….
from the novel I, Sniper, pp. 231-232
Funny thing about Zeitgeist, or The Spirit of the Age. It is always wrong.
You have an ideology whether you know it or not.
The media is making emotional arguments against guns which generate higher ratings and interest. Facts? Dull and boring. Low ratings.
The media doesn’t understand the pro gun emotional arguments.
They’re not biased against gun ownership.
They’re biased (by audience response) against good news unless it has an “aw, that’s sweet” factor, e.g. the family mutt saves a hamster from drowning in a vat of Hoppe’s #9.
Generally, the only good news is bad news, and DGU ain’t that.
Russ
want to know why?
Because they’re owned by five major corporations.
Done. End of discussion.
If you need help understanding that concept, then you probably shouldnt be able to vote…(but i support your dumbass right to 😉
The vast majority of people tend to agree to whatever it is that the people around them agree. People tend to accord emotional value to ideas and things, after which time debate becomes difficult, uncomfortable, personal, and counterproductive. This is due human psychological traits that developed over time to promote harmonious coexistence.
Chicago has had oppressive gun laws for years, initially in response gun crime. Gun laws were initially accepted by most gun owners because of the racist nature of their application; they were enforced against blacks, and suspicious-but-whitish immigrants like Italians, Jews, and various Slavs. Anti-gun animus grew steadily as a result of the association of guns to minorities, social acceptance of guns declined, leading to lower levels of gun ownership.
To someone in Chicago, a gun is something that a American-American uses to kill innocent children and rob white people. People who haven’t held or used a gun do not even think of a gun as a tool by which they could effect their own self-defense. And they’ll never get to that stage because to discuss guns positively would be to raise the moral opprobrium of their peers who harbor racist notions of guns as a means by which blacks commit crimes.
To someone in Texas a firearm could mean freedom and autonomy, and any discussion of further restrictions on gun ownership would be interpreted as a personally restrictive attack.
I have lived in the United States for over half a year now and I continue to be intrigued by America’s gun laws. Guns are such an emotional subject to most Americans that I cannot imagine that any rational gun laws will be passed anytime soon. Before any productive debate can take place, the left will have to acknowledge and abandon its racist thinking, and the right will have to cease to perceive guns as an aspect of the claimed but not legally recognized right to revolution.
I think you might need to live here a little longer. I don’t mean that in a condescending way. While your history might be correct, I think your appraisal of the current state of things is mistaken.
You will have a mild riot on your hands if you tell a large enough group of leftists that their anti-gun proclivities are borne of racism. One of the biggest planks in the leftist platform is “tolerance”. (And by leftist I mean the rank and file, not the leadership which may well be racist.)
As for the right, while most of the discussion here deals in firearms as a means of self defense, a reasonable argument can be made that an armed populace is (among other things) less likely to be tyrannized. Furthermore, those aligned with this way of thinking would see themselves not as revolutionaries, but rather defending against the revolution.
There are many facets to the issue, but I think that fact is guns just are not a problem. They are not a problem here and they weren’t a problem in Europe before it convulsed and swore them off. Mostly the gun debate is a kind of confusing smoke which is welcomed and encouraged by those up to something far, far worse. Yes, even worse than a school shooting, if you can imagine that.
Who cares why they are biased – we aren’t going to change the big city MSM “narrative”, even though there is some hope of converting the smaller-town news reporters (particularly the women who see a value in getting a concealed carry firearm & permit for their own safety) .
As far as the big network hacks go, it is probably best to adopt the policy of the crusader army during the Albigensian/Cathar Crusade (1209–1229), as recommended by the Abbot of Citeaux (Arnaud Amalric) during the sack of Béziers, France in July of 1209.
Hmm…Why is the media biased against gun ownership?
Why does Hilary get a pass on involvement in the deaths in Bengazi but Christie is in the headlines everyday for possible knowledge of a plot to cause a traffic jam?
Why is the media not demanding answers about the IRS becoming a political tool and obviously targetting conservative groups?
Why does NBC news have any credibility?
The answer to all of these and more questions is because the media has an liberal agenda. If you don’t promote the agenda you don’t get a voice.