Gto I come from a PR background before I moved into trade journalism. In PR, the goal is not to lie, but to tell a selective truth.
I recall reading an article a long time ago quoting Brady, or a Brady position piece itself perhaps, and immediately noticed they used "crime traces" instead of crime or homicide or murder. Hmmm. My spider sense was tingling. Crime trace is a lot weaker than crime, or homicide or murder in making your case, so why use the watered doown language? When I researched crime traces vs actual usage the language choice made sense. The usage figures are so low most people, even average Jane Soccer Mom might be tempted to say -- so what? Even the trace data was weak, at about 4 percent or so. But, that was the most impressive figure the Bradys could come up with, and they knew most people would mentally gloss over the whole "trace" reference.
Of course, propaganda like this requires a willing or ignorant (or likely both) media to work. The reporters have to not question the "facts" presented or not ask simple questions like, "you mentioned traces, but what about actual usage by criminals in homicide?" And, where firearms are concerned they are either biased or ignorant or both.
I have seen the last two Tribune editorials supporting AWB initiatives that did not make a single factual reference. In one case they copy and pasted bullet points from Brady.org. In that same editorial they lead in with "We cannot say if these weapons have been used more in crime since the ban ended, but (save the children, yada yada yada). WTF do you mean you "can't say" isn’t that your fricken job!
I have tracked the local Tribune coverage around gun events and from hard news with no editorializing to the selection of letters to the editor to the balance within editorializing articles passing off as hard news and there is virtually no balance. Quantifiable in a fairly objective sense.
IGOLD an annual firearm supporters march on Springfield (IL capital) had about 2500 participants this year, in the middle of the week covering 6 full blocks and virtually no reference in the Chicago media. Jessie Jackson busses in two loads of professional protestors on the PUSH dole to wear tee shirts and carry signs outside a local gun shop and it gets coverage by everybody. The difference -- in propaganda it is optimal to dehumanize the opposition. It’s not the people of Illinois protesting these gun laws but the evil NRA Gun Lobby <tm> Showing 2500 actual people helps defeat that spin, so it isn't covered.
Really too many examples not to conclude, objectively, that there is either intentional or institutional bias.
Big city newsrooms are not diverse. They may have a range of racial and ethnic and gender and lifestyle choices, but not culture diversity. They are the products of Ivy League schools with highly liberal academic foundations. Just look at Columbia University. They typically come from backgrounds that can afford to pay tuition at Ivy League type schools – perhaps fiscally conservative but not necessarily conservative otherwise. They come up through the ranks mentored by people with the same liberal core beliefs. Their editors share those beliefs. The publishers probably are more conservative but then, like many elites (Soros, etc. the Joyce folk even the Bushes), feel that the masses should not be trusted with guns.
There is also a conflict of interest. In the glory shootings/suicides like Virginia Tech, you can make a case that “sensible” restrictions on the 1st make as much if not more sense than any reactive restriction on the 2nd. A gun is the tool that they use, but international media coverage is the motivation. But that must not be addressed, except as some easily fading, generic moment of do nothing soul searching while they count the profits earned off of coverage of the tragedy. No activist calls to sensibly restrict the 1st on the Tribune editorial pages, that's for sure.
Fortunately, the Internet still allows an open, fact-based discussion of such issues that the monolithic, MSM cannot control with its many gatekeepers. At least so far.
Charon
