An Anti-Gun Media Report Every Two Minutes! So What?

By Robert Farago

Now that we’re into the weekend, the coverage of the Umpqua Community College shooting enters the fourth or what I call the “mop-up” phase. Phase 1: reporting. Phase 2: outraging. Phase 3: “debating.” Phase 4: mop-up (a.k.a., Sunday chat show analysis). The report above is a Phase 3 production. Notice that NBC titles the video – an overview of the post-Umpqua political reaction – Jeb Bush on Tough Gun Laws Following Mass Shooting: ‘Stuff Happens’. In other words, forget analysis, gotcha Jeb! And despite Jeb’s [out of context] realism, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! As a former CNN editor, let me say this about that . . .

TV news isn’t about information. It’s about emotion. If you gave viewers a comprehension test after the NBC report above they’d fail. I don’t care what you’d ask, except maybe “Are guns bad?” Which would elicit the same response if you asked them before they saw the news package. Which is why support for gun rights doesn’t flag – or only flags temporarily – after a “mass shooting.”

These events are only powerful, so emotional, because they’re perceived to be completely random. It could have been me in that …Read the Rest

Source:: Truth About Guns