Sensibly Progressive takes a detailed look at a New York Times article on the new National Park carry law that actually manages to be fairly balanced.
Category: The Media
Fish Wrap
Newspapers are less popular than airlines:
Not good. In fact, really not good. In the first quarter of ’09, newspaper customers’ satisfaction rating was 63. To put this in some perspective, those surveyed expressed a greater deal of satisfaction with airlines (airlines!) which scored 64. And cell phone providers (cell phone providers?) which score a 69.
I wonder if that could have anything to do with bias, crappy reporting, and not living up to even basic journalistic standards for a lot of newspapers. Journalism, as a profession, I think lost the public trust a long time ago, and the slow decline has as much to do with that as it does changes in technology.
Christian Science Monitor Profiles Gun Blogs
We ran into a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor in the NRA Press Office, who was interested doing a story on this whole gun blogging thing. We invited him out to talk to some of the bloggers at our happy hour.   The article he wrote is excellent, and has some choice quotes from Josh Sugarmann in regards to gun blogging, and other new media efforts.
Not Doing Enough
Obama could really do more, they say, to pass sensible gun laws, says the Washington Post.
Myths and Facts
The New York Times wants us to believe that it’s a myth that gun control is a third rail issue in American politics. Of course, they probably overlooked Dave Kopel’s study of the NRA’s influence in electoral politics. They must also not be paying any attention to polling data lately, or the shortages of guns and ammunition we’re experiencing due to through the roof demand.
If they want to pretend that those numbers can’t be translated into votes from angry gun owners on election day 2010, they are welcome to take the New York Times advice. But I suspect Congress sees the writing on the walls. We may end up a European-style social welfare state before this is all said and done, but we’ll be an armed European-style social welfare state.
NY Daily News Smear Job
Apparently the New York Daily News doesn’t like the fact that the NRA is presenting Sarah Palin with an Alaska themed AR-15:
The all-white “Alaskan Hunter” – fashionable until Labor Day – is the civilian version of a modified M-4 rifle carried by U.S. troops overseas.
No hint of condescension there at all.
It’s engraved with Palin’s name and adorned with a map of the state on the collapsible stock – made legal after the expiration of the assault weapons ban in 2004. The Big Dipper from the state flag is etched on the magazine well behind a vented barrel guard.
The rifle is chambered in .50-caliber “Beowulf.” It’s the same caliber used by heavy machine guns, which can take down big game, and in war zones “can disable both motor vehicles and assailants with body armor,” according to ammo manufacturer Alexander Arms’ Web site.
The .50 Beowulf is not used by any heavy machine gun. That’s the .50 BMG you twits. The .50 Beowulf can indeed take down big game. It would be a pretty good hunting round, in fact, for large game, like you would find in Alaska. And yes, like any centerfire rifle cartridge, it will penetrate soft body armor.
One wonders whether the New York Daily news would get their panties in a twist over this cartridge too, which, aside from being over 100 years old, has similar ballistic qualities to the .50 Beowulf, and would also zip through soft body armor, ballistic glass, and would easily disable vehicles. Let’s also not forget this armor piercing high-tech cartridge of death that preceded it. They must have really had it in for cops in the mid 19th century, let me tell you.
The fact that NRA offered to present this to Governor Palin, and she accepted, speaks highly of her Second Amendment bonifides. Surely she knew what the media reaction in places like New York were going to be.
World Turned Upside Down
What does it means when you have an editorial in the US News and World Report that says gun control is unconstitutional, period, and the Baltimore Sun runs an article about the ineffectiveness of the gun control movement?
It’s part of American legend that when Corwallis’ men surrendered to Washington and LaFayette after the Battle of Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolution, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down.” Someone send Paul Helmke a fife. If the media abandoned them, all is lost. That’s not to say gun control is dead, but the current incarnation might be. Will there be a rebirth? Will Brady change their name again? Who knows. But pretty clearly what they are doing now isn’t working.
Talk About Over the Top
Robert Legge of the Culpeper Star Exponent, is helping the newspaper live up to its name by some exponentially sour rhetoric about the National Rifle Association:
Joining the NRA became almost a patriotic duty, especially for rural Americans. But somewhere along the way, the NRA’s tenor grew more ominous. After the 1994 sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the NRA leadership whipped up anti-government hysteria, culminating in a famous fundraising letter warning of “jackbooted thugs … (who could) break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and injure or kill us.â€
Timothy McVeigh bought into that kind of incendiary rhetoric. A week after that NRA letter was sent, he blew up the federal Murrah building, killing many of the U.S. federal agents he so despised.
Actually, the infamous “jackbooted thugs” rhetoric can trace its origins to Congressman John Dingell (D-MI). But why let the facts get in the way when you’re trying to pin McVeigh on the NRA.
Wither Newspapers
In the future, when I try and describe what a ridiculous thing newspapers were, I guess I’ll mostly say they were good for crossword puzzles and for puppies to pee on while you were housebreaking them.
Years ago, newspapers actually used to be outwardly partisan. You can still see this today in papers that have titles like “Daily Republican” or “Times-Democrat” in them. At some point, Newspapers decided to start selling nearly the same thing as objective news. Except it wasn’t.
I think the reason for the decline of newspapers is fundamental, and not necessarily the result of bias. But I suspect whatever replaces the newspaper will be biased, but will be up front with it. Personally, I think that’s a better way to do news anyway. It’s almost impossible to report news without the reporter’s own biases, experiences and ignorance coming through. Best to be up front about those, I think. It’s why blogs work.
We need someone to generate raw news, but what good is raw news if society can’t have a reasonable conversation about it? Whatever replaces the newspaper, it’ll certainly be better than having that conversation only happen between journalists in editorial board meetings.
Lamenting The Inaction
The Washington Post is sounding curiously like the Brady Campaign this morning:
Progress has been stifled thanks to the outsize power of the gun lobby and its lawmaker allies. Equally disturbing is Capitol Hill’s failure to revive the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 or to defeat the Tiahrt amendment, which limits public disclosure regarding where and when guns used in crimes were sold.
As a candidate, President Obama campaigned on a promise to push for the closing of the gun show loophole and a revival of the assault weapons ban. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said during his confirmation hearing that he supports both actions. How many more people must be killed, and how many more families and communities devastated, before they and the Congress act?
Yeah, Tiahrt is all about stopping mass killers. Got to stop those gun shows too, even though it’s not been said any of the killers ever used one. Assault weapons ban?  Far better if they use far more deadly shotguns and rifles. Or gasoline and a match.