There’s an old saying that rings especially true to Second Amendment supporters: If you don’t read the news, you’re uninformed. If you do read the news, you’re misinformed. This is further reinforced by new data that show skepticism about mass media is broadly distributed among the U.S. population, with trust at its lowest point in the history of measurement.
The Gallup polling organization has been asking Americans about their “trust and confidence” in the mass media – newspapers, TV, and radio – to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” since 1972. While the overall trend has been negative, with a majority expressing distrust since 2004, recent developments are even more stark. Gallup’s latest numbers, gathered in a poll taken between Sept. 2-16, show overall trust and confidence in mass media at just 28%, down 31% from last year and 40% from five years ago.
While trust is at record lows among all party groups, Democrats (51%) – whose views are most often reflected in mainstream media reporting – unsurprisingly report confidence and trust at higher rates than Republicans (8%) and Independents (27%). A supermajority of Republicans (62%, the highest in polling history) expressed NO confidence or trust in mass media “at all.”
Significant age gaps also exist in trust, with confidence highest among adults aged 65 and older (43%), who grew up on gatekept radio and television broadcasts, and lowest among those aged 30-49 (23%), who coincided with the rise of more freewheeling digital media.
Gallup’s poll did not break out gun owners versus non-gun owners, but – as we have often opined – mainstream media reporting on firearms is driven by an anti-gun agenda and is rife with political bias, inaccuracy, ignorance, and sensationalism. To cite just two recent examples, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated with a rifle at long range during a political debate on a college campus, an MSNBC contributor ludicrously speculated Kirk might have been killed by “a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration.” And while it may not be entirely fair to call a late-night television host a member of the “mass media,” one suggested Kirk’s murderer was a member of the “MAGA crowd,” when even his own network reported information that all but foreclosed that possibility.
There are also well-established partnerships between firearm prohibition advocates and supposedly legitimate journalistic outlets. We have reported extensively on The Trace, which laughably claims to be all about “journalism” but is in fact the anti-gun media mouthpiece for billionaire Micheal Bloomberg, one of America’s leading gun control funders. It often “collaborates” with more mainstream media outlets – including The Atlantic, CBS News, and The New Yorker – to spread anti-gun talking points and narratives.
There is even an Association of Gun Violence Reporters whose leadership includes “a senior news writer and founding staffer at The Trace.” The group publishes a detailed guide for journalists on how to report on “gun violence.” Key to their approach is insisting that firearm-related crime is preventable and every firearm-related fatality points to a “solution.” Prevention and solutions, of course, always involve more gun control, including “evidence-based policies like permit to purchase, universal background checks, and waiting periods[.]”
Reporters, according to the guide, are also supposed to frame firearm-related crime as “structural,” as opposed to the result of morally culpable individual decision making. Thus, journalists should “[n]ever report in a way that suggests a victim ‘deserved’ to be shot because of what they were engaged in prior to the shooting,” even if, apparently, the person was a criminal shot in justified self-defense.
Among the “stigmatizing references” the guide counsels on avoiding are references to “good guys” or “bad guys,” as well as “racist codewords” like “gritty” or “urban.” On the other hand, writers are encouraged to remind readers the setting for firearm-related crime in America is always a “country with failing firearm policies.” They should also remind their audience the U.S. is a “society in which outcomes are shaped by structural racism, concentrated poverty, lack of access to social supports, and other environmental factors.” Yet another “driver” of “gun violence,” the guide claims, is “disinvestment in public health systems,” which of course accords with the belief that firearm-involved crime should be recast as a “public health issue.”
Whether the proponents of these sorts of projects to tilt a once-respected profession in a particular political direction are so ideology cloistered as to even realize what they are doing is increasingly difficult to determine. Invariably, they will insist “evidence,” “research,” “science,” and “truth” are on their side. Yet the idea that “journalists” need a pre-ordained framing for stories about firearm-related crime and mortality, and pre-ordained “prevention” and “solution” policies as inevitable takeaways, should speak for itself. That is advocacy, not news. And they are exploiting victims for ideological and political ends, not engaging in “trauma informed” journalism.
Unlike The Trace, we will not insult your intelligence and tell you we are without an opinion or an agenda when it comes to our reporting on firearm-related issues. We believe guns in the hands of law-abiding people save innocent lives, and our agenda is to protect and promote the Second Amendment. But we are happy to expose and defend our work to the public at large, including our harshest critics, who we know are among our most loyal readers. We continue to believe facts and common sense – to say nothing of America’s constitutional text, history, and tradition – support our viewpoint.
In any case, The Trace recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, a period over which the Gallup poll showed Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media declined by 12%.
Coincidence? We’ll let you decide.
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