We have all wondered by the MSM never takes a positive view on gun ownership and gun owners. This article provides an insider's view of how that has come to pass. Worth reading in full.
A CNN Founder Answers Why The Media Is Often One-Sided When It Comes To Guns
The reporting on why U.S. Army personnel stationed at recruiting centers aren’t allowed to be armed has to make anyone who knows a little about guns, and the gun issues, wonder if those news outlets are aware of what they’re not reporting? Do they understand why some Americans feel compelled to stand outside Army recruiting centers with guns? Any curious person might then wonder if ignorance or bias is the central reason why the mainstream media so often ignores studies and facts that are inconvenient to the anti-gun-rights point of view? There are, after all, over 100 million gun owners in the U.S., so how can mainstream journalists not be aware of basic facts about guns or of the reasons behind other points of view?
To understand how CNN, in particular, became a media outlet only interested in one point of view on guns I called one of its original seven founding members, Jim Shepherd, now the editor and publisher of The Shooting Wire. Shepherd has held a number of senior news executive positions during his career, including with CNN, the Financial News Network, the Golf Channel, and other television networks. He left CNN in 1985 after he became “disgusted with what they wouldn’t report.”
Jim says, “Part of what happened to CNN is what happened to Hollywood. The news, like Hollywood, became trapped in creating and fawning over celebrities. Getting Anderson Cooper publicized became more important than breaking the big story. When you have celebrity reporters telling you how they feel about being in Iraq instead of reporting on how our troops are doing you begin to lose perspective. With guns, instead of going to gun ranges, gun-owner’s homes, instead of interviewing women who’d stopped an attacker, and instead of really trying to understand the world such women live in and what they’re going through, they just tell us how they feel. Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, and the rest are stars, not reporters. They’re not hunting for the truth. They’re telling you what they think and what they think all comes from the cocktail parties on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and from conversations with other reporters.”
When I ask about his experience at CNN, he says, “When I was at CNN the lead stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post drove what we covered. They still do that for CNN and network news to a large extent. The cable news’ reporters and producers are intellectually lazy. They’re so busy chasing each other they don’t stop to find the truth.”
I ask how we break this cycle and Jim laughs before saying, “It’s happening now. CNN’s ratings are plummeting. Both The Washington Post and The New York Times have seen their staffs cut as their circulations have dropped. CNN now has as many viewers as they did in 1985. They can’t understand how they’re being beaten. They don’t want to hear the truth, that they’ve lost touch. I tried to tell them once......
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