PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Should journalists be more activist on guns? Of course not. :: 09/01/2015
Here's longtime CBS News anchor Dan Rather writing on Wednesday about journalists' role in the wake of the latest incident of high-profile gun violence in Roanoke, Va.:
There are some journalistic organizations that have done a remarkable job trying to keep the gun violence story on the front pages and leading the news broadcasts. But it is sometimes hard to report on a story that is just everywhere, one that is just part of society as we accept it. What more can you say? What other angles can you pursue? And yet we as journalists must find new angles.
It would be a fitting tribute to the two young journalists who died today if their station took up this challenge. If the incredible death toll from gun violence had any other cause — terrorism, a plague, unsafe buildings, we would find the national resolve to act. It would be emblazoned in large headlines across our news media.
Gun violence must not be any different.
He's wrong.
Rather's basic conceit is that the line between journalist and activist shouldn't exist. As in, journalists' job following the murders of two young journalists is to keep the story of gun violence in front of the American public because, in so doing, it will prod the political process to action. Journalists, to quote Rather, should be tasked with helping people "find the national resolve to act."
That's not journalists' job. That's the job of activists on both sides of the gun debate. Journalists' job is to cover how activists and politicians react (and don't) to this latest incident of gun violence. If a national resolve is created — as was the case on legalizing same-sex marriage — journalists' job is to cover that story too.
Rather's idea that the common-place nature of gun violence and the short attention span of the American public have combined to make journalists move on too fast from these sort of incidents isn't borne out by the facts. The coverage of the Charleston church shooting was wall-to-wall and extended for weeks after the incident. Ditto the movie theater shooting in Colorado. And, the Newtown school shooting was the single biggest story (with the exception of the election) — in terms of coverage — of 2012.
In each of those incidents, not only was the crime itself covered but so too was the political debate that ensued. For Charleston that became a conversation about the Confederate flag. Following the movie theater shooting and Newtown it was a broader conversation about gun violence and gun laws.
Neither of those two shootings and the national conversations that followed led to national legislation to limit how people buy guns. That is not reporters' fault.
It is absolutely true that with the rise of the partisan media over the last decade (or so), the line between activism and journalism has been blurred like never before. But, at its root, journalism is about bringing facts to the public — and leaving it up to them to make decisions about how they should be governed and by whom.
Simply because the public doesn't agree with Rather doesn't mean journalists aren't doing their jobs. Rather's argument is much like the one many journalistic watchers make about how to cover Donald Trump. They would relegate the businessman to a sideshow because he doesn't act like a traditional politician, uses at-times incendiary rhetoric and is generally dismissive of the need for specifics.
But, that's not the point. The point is that Trump has built a real national following. Our job as reporters isn't to try to disqualify those followers but rather to understand them and Trump's appeal to them. It's also to fact-check Trump's assertions and make clear when what he says doesn't match reality.
Rather would turn all journalists into gun control advocates. While I abhor gun violence and felt physically ill watching what happened in Roanoke on Wednesday, I don't think my job is to advocate for more gun laws in this country. It's to cover the debate, present the facts as fairly and thoroughly as possible and let the public decide what they think the right next steps are.
Activism has its place in the world of politics and policy. But activism is not journalism.
