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In a remarkable development in journalism, members of the Denver Post staff are in “open revolt” against the newspaper’s owners, according to the New York Times, with newspaper economics and circulation loss at least part of the equation.
But if newspaper circulation is down – as it appears to be at several publications – could part of the fault be traced to editorial positions that have driven away readers, and in some ways alienated and even vilified them? Newspapers are, after all, businesses and losing customers is bad, but driving them away is much worse.
When was the last time the editorial page of a major newspaper used the First Amendment to vigorously defend the Second? Gun rights activists who may have once been devoted readers often ask that question and that makes it a legitimate inquiry.
Google the term “gun control editorials” and see the results. Liberty Park Press did that Monday morning and found “about 1,830,000 results.” Those would include a New Jersey editorial headlined “NJ must step up on gun control.” There’s one from the March 27 Terre Haute Tribune Star headlined “Finally, America confronts gun violence.” In that editorial, the newspaper declared, “Nobody is trying to take away people’s right to bear arms.” This was just days after retired Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens had recommended that very thing as a goal of student protesters around the country.
Over the weekend, the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado stated, “We support a nationwide ban on the sale of military-style weapons, so-called assault rifles, known generically as the AR-15 and variations thereof.” To the millions of law-abiding citizens who own those rifles, that looks suspiciously like someone is advocating the taking of their right to bear arms that they prefer to own, and have used to harm nobody.
The Salem, Oregon Statesman-Journal headlined its editorial of the same date “Gun measures could come to Oregon without gun owners’ input.” The editorial stated, “The Second Amendment does not guarantee ‘unregulated’ access to guns.” However, the amendment does say “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” At what point does “regulation” become an “infringement?”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialized March 12, “America’s gun problem is the National Rifle Association.” The 5 million members of that organization might disagree, and use their pocketbooks to say so.
For contrast, Google the term “gun rights editorials” and of the 538,000 results, the leading examples are actually all supporting gun control.
Here’s a hint to newspaper editorial boards and owners: Millions of law-abiding citizens who might be potential or former readers will not pay for subscriptions to publications that encourage the trampling of their Constitutional rights, and strict government intrusion into their lifestyles.
Perhaps the best/worst example of the disconnect a newspaper editorial board has with people it would like to have as readers comes from the San Francisco Chronicle. On April 4, the newspaper editorialized about the shooting at the YouTube campus in nearby San Bruno.
“But here’s one serious fact that we already know about this shooter,” the newspaper stated, “and every mass shooter in the past: It was far too easy for them to get the weapons they had. Compared with other states, California has relatively strict gun control laws.”
California’s gun laws are, by some measures, Draconian. Ask members of the California Rifle & Pistol Association about the “ease” with which they can legally purchase a firearm. The YouTube shooter passed through all the hoops to get a handgun. Readers look at this and conclude that the newspaper’s editorial board is suggesting that it is too easy to buy a firearm when one can buy a firearm at all, as though the Second Amendment is a “loophole.”
The Denver Post staffers behind the revolt make some good arguments about the newspaper’s ability to cover local news with a strong newsroom staff. No doubt those reporters try to do a good job of presenting balanced, objective news reports.
Yet when the editorials speak for their publication, it is pretty hard to convince potential readers you’re doing them a service while at the same time openly advocating the trampling of a fundamental individual right they hold dear.
The Salem newspaper editorial argued that gun owners “can come to the table to talk about compromises. Let’s fashion regulation we all can live with, and that leaves us all safer and with our constitutional amendments intact.”
Gun owners will respond that they have compromised enough, already, with nothing to show in return. Those gun owners might ask the newspaper if it would consent to running pro-rights editorials once each month, and whether it would agree to submit their gun-related editorials to gun rights groups to be checked for factual accuracy. Call it an “enhanced background check.”
No? Second Amendment advocates didn’t think so.
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