Not so much a question as an observation.As a news junkie it was painfully obvious that the so called mainstream media devote an inordinate amount of ink {or is it bytes now} to just about every story where a firearm was used to commit a crime but little or no coverage of a positive firearm story.

I am reminded of this when the incident of the Florida Beauty Queen and her pink revolver hit the news, but in retrospect it's only a story because 1:She's rather easy on the eyes. 2:The pink revolver. 3:The comic ostentation of the couple and their house. 4:The wiff of "something more is going on here than meets the eye".

After living abroad quite recently it was also obvious that the foreign media is even worst, where every fire arm incident in the US is used as an illustration of our inevitable fall into oblivion/chaos/hand baskets and hell. Especially at a time where Europe was experiencing an especially violent period.{Riots in France,Italy and Greece.knifing's and shootings in the UK.Terrorist cells in Scandinavia}

Some of you that read this will properly ask under which rock did I call home? and I am all too aware of our liberal press but it truly hit home when I opted to be a gun owner.

What do you think?

The media will take a news story of any flavor, be it gun related or other wise and spin it to fit into any agenda. Most of the time this is to fit into mostly liberal news networks idea that guns are evil and should only be carried by soldiers and police officers. Even if the story doesn't involve guns in ANY aspect they will manage to fit it in their. This very same thing happened during elections when tea parties were happening all over the country with MSNBC and CNN only focusing on those who carried a weapon in the open. They didn't worry about the political issues, but only about the 'nuts' having guns in public with children around and claiming they were ALL white and racist to boot, when the fact was (and in whole totally disregarded by MSM) it was an even dispersion of races that carried weapons openly. Why did they ignore facts and even be so extreme as to edit video in their favor? It didn't fit into their agenda. The one where they want total government control and over sight over everything that happens. They want to villainize weapons and make them seem so evil that no normal person should have one. By doing this they take the power away from gun owners and give it the misinformed masses who will further their agenda at the polls.

 

By no means am I a person who demonizes media, it actually serves some kind of purpose. But when it comes to reporting gun related stories I hear it then check four other sources before I make an opinion. Thats the problem with people, they take what they are spoon fed and accept it.

The media will take a news story of any flavor, be it gun related or other wise and spin it to fit into any agenda. Most of the time this is to fit into mostly liberal news networks idea that guns are evil and should only be carried by soldiers and police officers. Even if the story doesn't involve guns in ANY aspect they will manage to fit it in their. This very same thing happened during elections when tea parties were happening all over the country with MSNBC and CNN only focusing on those who carried a weapon in the open. They didn't worry about the political issues, but only about the 'nuts' having guns in public with children around and claiming they were ALL white and racist to boot, when the fact was (and in whole totally disregarded by MSM) it was an even dispersion of races that carried weapons openly. Why did they ignore facts and even be so extreme as to edit video in their favor? It didn't fit into their agenda. The one where they want total government control and over sight over everything that happens. They want to villainize weapons and make them seem so evil that no normal person should have one. By doing this they take the power away from gun owners and give it the misinformed masses who will further their agenda at the polls.

 

By no means am I a person who demonizes media, it actually serves some kind of purpose. But when it comes to reporting gun related stories I hear it then check four other sources before I make an opinion. Thats the problem with people, they take what they are spoon fed and accept it.

Well said, and while I agree that there is a underlying history of demonizing firearms in the popular press, at what point does it become repetitive and stop selling newspapers?

We have increasingly become a society suffering from ADD with the attention spans of your common house fly so at what point does the mass shootings,or drive by's begin to bore us and we instead look for the opposite?. The Florida beauty queen, however flawed the story may be,being one.

The problem is always going to be that people who don't have a strong pre-existing opinion on a given subject aren't generally going to bother fact checking news stories on that subject. Just like you, I always fact check any news story about firearms because I already have a pretty strong opinion on them and I'm going to go the extra mile when I smell BS on the subject. Do I do the same when I hear about about people arrested for other crimes or localized political scandals in other states? Generally not. For many other people, stories of shootings and whatnot are sorty of distand or unremarkable by default, so when they hear or read such stories, they just aren't going to have that same drive to question the facts as presented. After enough stories go by without them challenging it, it all starts to sound more or less "correct" to them, and they end up being those people closer to the middle that end up being duped into supporting the far left's nonsense because they dont' know any better.

We, as a society have become obsessed with doom and gloom stories. If it doesn't depress we don't want to hear it. Mass shootings, drive by's, robberies and rape are what keep us invested in MSM because they give us what we want. Doom and gloom. Why hear one story about a Florida beauty queen defending her self when there are 10 stories about four kids being killed in Philly because of a gang drive by? Its disgusting but thats what has happened with us. Its the same with 'obesity' epidemic they keep telling us about. You know the shots of fat people (and I mean disgustingly fat) walking around malls an such? What you don't know is that they sit in one spot for hours on end to get that footage. They spend the same amount of time looking for gun violence caused by people that shouldn't have them in the first place. Its almost like they operate on a formula.

 

Fear+panic/rationality=People who will follow your every word no matter how strange it may be.

The problem is always going to be that people who don't have a strong pre-existing opinion on a given subject aren't generally going to bother fact checking news stories on that subject. Just like you, I always fact check any news story about firearms because I already have a pretty strong opinion on them and I'm going to go the extra mile when I smell BS on the subject. Do I do the same when I hear about about people arrested for other crimes or localized political scandals in other states? Generally not. For many other people, stories of shootings and whatnot are sorty of distand or unremarkable by default, so when they hear or read such stories, they just aren't going to have that same drive to question the facts as presented. After enough stories go by without them challenging it, it all starts to sound more or less "correct" to them, and they end up being those people closer to the middle that end up being duped into supporting the far left's nonsense because they dont' know any better.

I have seen this within my own family, My brother who has lived in Scandinavia for the past 30 years and has been subjected to what amounts , at least in my mind, Anti American propaganda and I have had heated conversations on gun culture in Europe and the US.

Taking into account that the country of our birth has mandatory military service and you are required to store your issued firearms at home until age 40, I could not understand the anti firearm fervor until I began really reading the many newspapers and listening to local newscasts.

"The media" is a business.

 

The media exists to make money, not to perform a public service of keeping you properly informed.

 

There's a lot of ways to sell a product, but among them, appealing to emotion works almost every time.

 

Of the emotions to appeal to, few are as reliable as fear.

 

When talking about guns, drugs, crime, trans fats, the middle east, tsunami, snowstorms, you name it, the easiest way to sell it, simply put, is FEAR.

 

No station is innocent of this. No one sells fear quite like FOX, but they all do it. The only difference is to what extent they do so.