OK. Deep breath. It’s game time.
I tried twice yesterday to get through a piece by Rochester TV reporter Devin Bartilotta of WTTC television in Rochester. There were two references to “Packing Heat” in the first ten seconds of the report; I just couldn’t go on.
But with that out of the way, it wasn’t a complete lost cause:
Bartilotta:
BCA data indicates a 312 percent increase in the number of permits issued to women from 2011 to 2013 in the zip code zones that are mostly in Olmsted County. In 2011, 122 permits were issued to women in that area. In 2012, the number jumped to 134. Then in 2013 it nearly doubled to 381 permits. 36 percent of those permits issued to women in 2013 were issued to women who were younger than 40-years-old. Those numbers are still dwarfed by the more than 1,200 men who got permits in 2013 in the same area.
Lisa Polowski, who processes the gun permits in Olmsted County, says the national 2013 firearm bump could be prompted by the 2012 shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut.
“Things like that in society were really feeding into this, that people really feel the need to protect themselves” Polowski said. “Our numbers went up by probably 60 percent for a permit to purchase.”
But in generally safe and quiet Southeast Minnesota, women might still feel threatened.
“Self defense is what it boils down to,” said Marquette.
“Many times it’s an equalizer. Because many times their attackers are bigger, stronger, and this may help them,” Bierly said.
OK, after a couple of false starts, that’s not bad. And incredibly, we actually saw a news report about a Minnesota that doesn’t bring in an obligatory comment from the useless Heather Martens – perhaps an advantage to getting news from a Greater Minnesota outlet.
So that’s all to the good.
We almost made it to the end without another cliché.
I said almost:
But in an increasingly violent world, the need for personal protection is putting more women on target.
Ms. Bartillota – does that sentence actually mean anything?
To the extent it does, it’s wrong; the idea that the world is getting more violent is, like “packing heat”, another media cliché – and unlike “packing heat”, it actually does some harm. The world is not “increasingly violent”. Violent crime is plummeting – in the parts of the country where guns are least “controlled”, anyway, where violent crime is off by half in the past twenty years.
But hey, at least we got to the end!
There must be a class in all the big J(ournalism) schools that talks about inserting cute catchphrases (regarding guns and other topics) in articles and esepcially headlines. EVERY news outlet is guilty of it, including FOXNews.
Sarah Palin was targeted for using the word “crosshairs” in her political literature, which reportedly was the gunpowder that ignited Jared Loughner’s semi-automatic shooting rampage. No recoil for liberal biased reporters is ever required, however.
(and I didn’t need to take a class for that)
Many years ago, there was a story in the Rochester Post-Bulletin about several people hearing gunshots repeatedly in a certain area. I called and explained there was a police shooting range located very close–as in a few hundred yards–of the area in question. No follow-up. No correction. Just leaving the people in the area to think gun violence was rampant.
Bill, I graduated with a journalism degree back in 1998. Back then, they actually told us NOT to use cliches and NOT to rely on BUM BUM BUMMMM e-mail correspondence, believe it or not. We were basically told not to take rumor and word of mouth and run with it until we’d verified with actual people who knew something (presumably), on the phone.
Now journalists lift posts verbatim from Facebook and Twitter and take soundbites out of context and rip e-mails apart for the best click-bait.
I write freelance IT articles and submit them to editors WAY younger than me who ask me to insert SEO terms who have absolutely no idea what any of the IT terms mean.
To expect any journalists today to understand even the most remedial gun facts is taking a leap of faith, at best.
I graduated with a degree in Journalism in ’79, and back then we were told in no uncertain terms that there should be no “composite” people in stories, and every piece of information had to have two sources of corroboration before we could use it. And, of course, you were supposed to question the self-interest of the people supplying information, especially if they wanted to remain anonymous.
If that piece upset you, maybe you shouldn’t read this:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/States-with-high-gun-ownership-have-more-firearm-6059566.php#photo-7476914
A piece that takes a “report” from Violence Policy Center and presents it as news. Oh, yeah, and check this out; one gun grabber backing up another
“”This report should be a wake-up call to state legislators,” says Cathie Whittenburg, communications director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence.”
Heh
Yeah, I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you, Mitch.
I watched the clip. It’s as good as we could ask, far better than we should expect from Minnesota media. Yes it has cliches, but that’s likely the editor trying to be clever. The reporter did a solid job for us.
Everyone shown is the right kind of gun rights supporter. The women students are attractive and sensible. The teachers are reasonable. The reporter actually learned in the class and personally fired the weapon. No fire-breathing urban commandos making us look like stupid savages.
Better still, they didn’t show one gun-grabber worrying about the gun being used against you, carnage in the streets following fender benders or risks to children in the home. Nobody claiming women taking carry classes are hysterically over-reacting as national crime rates actually fall.
I think an Olmstead County woman seeing that segment would say “Hmmm, maybe I should try it” and that’s the best PR any gun rights advocate could possibly desire.