Shooting at Las Vegas casino

Journalists obstinately refused to learn about sabermetrics and now baseball junkies barely consider them sources of information anymore.

Putting journalists aside, when liberals in general stridently and proudly maintain they don’t need no gun learnin’, they are effectively punting policy proposals to those who do know - mostly conservative gun rights advocates.

Gets you some back slaps at the kale bistro, though.

 

Early reporting is by definition inexact.

The expectation that spot news reporting be perfectly correct as events are unfolding is unrealistic.

Just because the mechanisms for conveying information are instantaneous doesn't mean that fact-finding is instantaneous, too.

 

We’re talking about different things. I understand (and think it was largely accurate) to call it “automatic fire.”

 

As Dick points out, unless reporters/activists/politicians learn a little something about guns, and how people use them, they will make poor arguments regarding how they should be regulated, which will not help the cause they are advocating.

This article is pretty good, and was discussed on a certain right wing radio show yesterday.

 

I was replying to YF.

Sorry. Not up on the 'new' quote function.

 

Scribe just explained the primary issue. You and others use it to avoid the real discussion. The funny part, as I mentioned earlier, is that the argument you are fighting for so desperately actually highlights the need for tougher gun legislation based on this incident.

 

Blame the 24/7 news cycle. Accuracy should be more important than being first, but instead you're getting to see the sausage made live.

 

I understand that early reports may be wrong, and may even be wrong based on information coming from police sources.

So, a report of a second shooter in a situation like this might be understandable, though based on previous events, journalists should let their audience know that these early reports may change.

But, getting basic facts about guns wrong, when you have the ability to use a tool like google to check your own facts is something different.

That the topic is guns, or some other field like aviation, that you might not be familiar with, is not an excuse. You don't write something as a fact unless you've confirmed it as a fact.

If you're unwilling or unable to do this, I'm not sure what value you bring as a journalist.

 

Look over there! Don't look over here! Media BAD!

Rinse. Repeat.

 

A good guy without a gun?

 

Well, except when we see days later that folks want to make the "wrong, but basically right" argument, which shows they have contempt for facts when it comes to emotional issues like guns.

Semantics!

If you look at basic facts as mere semantics to be avoided, you're not a journalist, you're an activist.

 

You see the world through ideologically pure lenses, so I think you often project that onto other people.

I don't think this is as partisan-driven as you think it is. Journalists think of their job as being to break things down for public consumption and understanding. That's noble. The problem is that they internalize that to mean that details are a buncha bullshit. They end up having contempt for tedium. I used to be this way, too, at times. I should have known more about football schemes, for example, even if I thought of myself as a feature guy/columnist (which I was). But ... buncha bullshit.

Not talking about the good ones.