In short, as Patrick observed, the "NRA is indeed treated much differently from the other groups." Mainstream press critics have shown little interest in this disparity. David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times, for example, says he has not written on the topic and can't recall seeing any articles about it.
The few journalists who responded to Patrick's requests for interviews suggested that the NRA had hurt itself by moving out of Washington, D.C., in 1994 to a location in Fairfax County, Virginia, some 45 minutes away from the reporters centered in the nation's capital. Handgun Control remained in Washington and is therefore more accessible. Patrick also suggests there is a "cyclical feedback" problem in which news organizations copy each another. One journalist admitted his research was "parochial"; he looked at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other major publications to see what they had published on the subject. The biases in early stories were therefore recycled into new ones.
These biases are largely ideological. One journalist flatly told Patrick: "I've been a reporter for 25 years, and I'm familiar with the opinions of other people in the field. Elite reporters sympathize with gun control positions, not the NRA." Another observed, "Sarah Brady is just like us." (The reporters spoke with Patrick on the condition that he not divulge their names or employers.)
Given such prejudices, is it hopelessly unrealistic to expect fair reporting on the gun issue? Perhaps not. In March, Washington Post columnist William Raspberry wrote about an 83-year-old widower named A.D. Parker who had been awakened a few weeks before by the sounds of a burglar prying open the back door of his San Francisco home. Parker grabbed an old .38-caliber revolver from under his bed and went to the doorway of his bedroom, where he was confronted by Michael Moore, a convicted felon who was carrying a large wrench and a crowbar. Parker fired once, slammed the door, and dialed 911. Moore was pronounced dead a short time later from a gunshot wound to the chest. "I shot him just that once," Parker told The San Francisco Examiner. "If I had waited a second longer, I don't think I'd be around to tell my story." Raspberry, usually a strong supporter of stricter gun control, said the incident had given him pause. "In general, I think we'd all be a lot safer with a lot fewer guns," he wrote. "On the other hand, I'm very glad A.D. Parker was armed."
Unfortunately, that sort of open-mindedness is rare among elite journalists. More typical is the unabashed identification with the gun control cause that was reflected in a 1993 column by Thomas Winship, former editor of The Boston Globe, in the trade journal Editor and Publisher. Under the headline, "Step up the war against guns," Winship declared: "It is time to square off against guns. We are talking about a sustained newspaper crusade." He advised newspapers to highlight youth killings on page 1 and to report on gun manufacturing levels and the flow of guns. (These are themes that Patrick says he encountered in analyzing the content of the NRA's press coverage.) "Support all forms of gun licensing," said Winship, "in fact all causes the NRA opposes."
If the media really are fighting a war rather than reporting the news, they aren't just doing a disservice to their readers. They may be threatening the well-being of future shooting victims. If the war they're waging is successful--either through stricter laws or by convincing people that owning firearms isn't worth the risk--the next Joel Myrick may not have a gun.
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