Media Biased Towards Guns

Josey1

Media Biased Towards Guns Gun owners and sportsmen who feel they're getting a bum rap in the media aren't suffering from persecution complex. Recent studies suggest the media have a definite bias against guns and gun ownership.University of Michigan PhD Brian Patrick recently spent a year poring over 1,500 published articles that appeared in such prestigious publications as The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor, and what he discovered was an obvious bias on the subject of guns.When published articles described organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, it referred to the group as a "leading liberal champion" or a "civil liberties group." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was called a "national civil rights group" or a "venerable civil rights organization".But when the National Rifle Association was mentioned, it was usually described with negative labels, like "radical gun lobby", "arrogant lobby" and "a rich and paranoid organization".The use of unflattering labels wasn't the only way the media put a negative spin on the gun-control debate. When information comes from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) or the NAACP, sources are quoted with verbs like "reported", "indicated" or "documented".When the NRA was quoted, stories used verbs like "claims", "asserts", "alleges" or "likes to portray".Concludes Patrick, "These data support a conclusion of systematic marginalization of the NRA."Research conducted by the Media Research Center suggests television coverage is equally one-sided. Of the 653 television reports examined by MRC Senior Analyst Geoffrey Dickens, 357 advocated gun control to just 36 opposing it, a whopping 10 to 1 ratio (260 were neutral). Evening news shows favored gun control by a lopsided 8- to-1 margin while morning shows were 13-to-1 in favor of an anti-gun policy.The study showed news programs were twice as likely to air anti-gun sound bites as they were to use pro-gun sound bites and twice as likely to feature anti-gun guests.Conversely, Project Exile--the highly successful prosecution program used in Richmond, VA and supported by the NRA--received single-digit story counts in the 653-story sample.The 13 million viewers who tune into morning news programs were subjected to the most biased coverage. On ABC's "Good Morning America", 99.7 percent of the 93 news segments examined over a two-year period advocated more gun-control laws. NBC's "Today" aired 82 segments in favor of gun control and just 10 opposing it.For anyone who thinks the slant of a given story is open to interpretation, consider these quotes from Juan Williams of FOX and Geraldo Rivera on CNBC. "I don't' understand why we're piddling around," said Williams. "We should talk about getting rid of guns in this country."Geraldo didn't leave much room for speculation on his position, either, when he said, "How much longer are we gonna be wrapping he flag of patriotism to justify 250 million guns out there?""The networks aren't trying to show even the most remote sense of balance when it comes to gun control," says MRC Chairman Brent Bozell III. "It is advocacy. Virtually all of these biased stories might as well be paid political advertisements for gun control organizations. It's an embarrassment and a disgrace for news organizations who claim to be balanced and present both sides of crucial issues before a public that needs facts, not spin, in order to make informed decisions.""On no other issue is there a wider gulf between mainstream America and the media," wrote Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe. "...in the nation's eminent newsrooms, it is axiomatic that guns are nasty, that more guns mean more crime and that those who defend the Second Amendment are 'gun nuts'. No wonder the NRA gets such bad press. And no wonder so many gun owners have abandoned newspapers as their chief source of information." http://www.winkelman.com/newspapercolumn/aug/mediaaugh.htm

Iconoclast

Old news. Saw a sound bite last week (on Fox?) in which the CEO of CBS news openly and proudly admitted the liberal bias of his organization and others of the industry.

turbo

Sure, now Geraldo the pistolero is neutral about guns, maybe he'll fall in love with Afgahn and decide to stay.All he needs is a scraggly beard to add to the "stach", and he can preach the anti-gun sound bites to them , there.

ghotie_thumper

Some place back in time the media heard the term that the pen is mightier than the sword, and they are still out to prove it. Josey you've gone preachin to the choir on this one. You should post it on a few anti sites as well. It's good to see someone in the media is working in an unbiased manner.