I was a journalist about a quarter century ago. However, I don't do that anymore. I have a real job.
The news environment is radically different than years past.
When I was in j-school and later as a reporter, we had to be accurate, we had to have attribution to everything we wrote, and we had to offer both sides. The only exception was when we were writing puff features about the retirement of the local Fuller Brush Man.....in those cases, we tried to be accurate, but mostly we were writing for the feel-good effect.
After Watergate, the j-schools burst at the seams from what was called the Woodstein Syndrome...intelligent but ignorant kids wanting to become reporters so they could change the world. The result was an oversupply of poorly trained media idiots.
Nowdays, a newspaper hits the street in the a.m. and by noon the e-mails are hitting the newspaper. Information to back up the correct conservative viewpoint is at everyone's fingerprints. In the '70s, a letter had to be mailed. It would be days before it hit the newspaper, and by then the original issue was fish wrap.
Conservatives are getting better at quoting the Constitution, the Fed Papers, legal rulings, etc. This intimidates most reporters, but they tend to listen because journalists don't want to be seen as ignorant.
Whenever CNN, CBS, or any of the others screws the pooch on issues important to conservatives, the response is prompt and educated. We need to continue to do this each and every time.
One of the best things a local shooting community can do is get local reporters out to the range. Make it educational, not confrontational. Allow them to put their hands on the actual hot issues of the day. Patiently teach them the weirdness of the law. Teach them how to shoot...purely as an educational experience.
Journalists get their hackles up when confronted. Stroke their egos and you can teach them all kinds of tricks. The liberals won the media over by teating them as special people. We need to treat them as people worth the time to educate. It will pay huge bonuses.