Here is an article written by Brent Bozell, founder and President of the Media Research Center, who suggests that anti-gun stories have dramatically increased since the Newtown shooting due to the fact that the major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, are attempting to push a liberal agenda:
http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2013/02/08/doubling-down-on-antigun-news-n1507893/page/full/
Everyone can imagine the horror of a madman shooting up an
elementary school, especially the horror of losing your six-year-old in
the melee. But at some point, the news media's wallowing in Newtown
reminds one of Don Henley's satirical song "Dirty Laundry," and how the
anchors' eyes gleam through plane-crash news because "it's interesting
when people die; we love dirty laundry."
The "O" word that defines the media at times like these isn't "objective." It's "opportunistic."
To be sure, the "news" manufacturers aren't hoping for a school
shooting. But that doesn't mean they aren't ready to exploit it.
Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen was explicit back in 1999: ""Perhaps it
will take one more school shooting to move the majority of Americans
into a position more powerful than that of the NRA. Perhaps it will take
one more school shooting to move us from people who support gun control
to people who vote it."
A new Media Research Center study
reviewed a sample of 216 gun-policy stories on ABC, CBS and NBC in the
first month after Newtown, from the Dec. 14 shooting through the morning
after President Obama's Feb. 16 speech pushing new gun control
proposals. The number is instructive. That's not 216 stories in a month
on Newtown. That's 216 stories just about the policy "solution" -- more
gun control.
There are zero stories tilting toward a
"solution" of curbing violence in TV and movies. That's because the TV
networks show violent scenes nightly and are owned by companies with
movie studios that profit from violent scenes. Try finding the word
"violence" next to "movies" or "television" in a post-Newtown story on
the TV networks where it isn't a casual afterthought.
The First Amendment is treated as sacred; the Second Amendment as profane.
As one might suspect, stories advocating more gun control
dominated. But "outnumbered" is an understatement. They smothered
stories tilting against gun control by 99 to 12, or more than 8 to 1.
It's easy to arrive at that results when anti-gun sound bites were
aired almost twice as frequently as gun rights sound bites (228 to
134). When the Big Three network "news" operations sought out guests for
interviews, the tilt was 26 to 7.
CBS won the month for
being the most shamelessly tilted, with 44 anti-gun stories to just two
with a gun-rights emphasis and 37 in the neutral zone. NBC was "best"
with a slant of 26 to 5, and 43 neutral stories. Let's hope none of
these people would assert that they're "fair and balanced" when
absolutely everyone can smell the strong liberal coffee they're making.
No one at the networks waited to begin the campaign advertising
disguised as "news." On the first night after the Newtown shooting, just
hours after the grisly story broke, "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott
Pelley was already pushing: "One wonders if the nature of this crime and
the age of the victims might create the debate in Washington that could
push legislation along?"
Over on NBC that night, reporter
Tom Costello connected liberal dots: "In Colorado, still haunted by the
Aurora and Columbine massacres, the governor of that western pro-gun
state also said it's time to begin a discussion about sensible gun
control. ... Tonight, with dozens dead, including so many children, the
debate over guns is back."
The bias here is just loaded with
urgency, because every politicized "news" advocate knows that the
policy debate on guns operates on emotion, and not on facts. The facts
might be the same in the first 10 days as they are three months later,
but liberal journalists feel like they're going to lose the debate to
the NRA's army of members in fly-over country as soon as the emotion
subsides.
That's why the Senate launched an emotional gun
control hearing on Jan. 30 starring former Democrat Congresswoman Gabby
Giffords, a famous and tragic victim of a madman shooting. Even that
Gabby story was a rerun, since the networks also promoted her saying
"Enough" to the NRA on Jan. 7 on the anniversary of the Tucson shooting.
Six days before the hearing, a Senate staffer told Broadcasting
and Cable magazine that the hearing would not be confined to gun control
issues and could include mental health and media violence issues: "I
think everything is going to come up." But while the witness panel was
balanced, there was no panel of Hollywood executives to face tough
questions, the way that Senators love lining up tobacco or oil-company
CEOs.
After Newtown, the networks again demonstrated that
there's no story on which they can't dramatically stack the deck.
Liberal news stories lead to liberal legislation. They know it; and
relish it.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Doubling Down on Anti-Gun News
9:16 AM
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