Anti-Gun Joyce Foundation Buys ‘News’ Stories Pushing Gun Control
ad·vo·ca·cy: noun, plural -cies. The act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active.
by Chad D. Baus
Ohio –-(Ammoland.com)- The Code of Ethics for the Society of Professional Journalists states that “Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know,” and specifies that:
Journalists should:
- Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
- Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
- Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
A series of articles written by Theodore Decker and published last week in The Columbus Dispatch ignores these principles, taking advocacy journalism to a level even the founders of the SPJ probably couldn’t imagine when they adopted their first code of ethics in 1926.
The three-part series is entitled “Overrun by guns”.
In his first article, Decker cites “a Dispatch analysis of state records” which “found that in 2009 alone, law-enforcement officers in Ohio investigated 12,550 incidents in which a gun was present,” or “about 34 per day.” The analysis also reportedly found that “guns were used in 62 percent of all Ohio homicides in 2009…; 41 percent of robberies; and 24 percent of aggravated assaults, which include shootings…”
“Add to that toll the enormous medical costs,” Decker continues. “The cost of tending to the injured in Ohio averages about $37 million in inpatient hospital charges a year…”
Of Ohio’s 502 slayings in 2009, 62 percent were gun homicides, according to the FBI. …
Guns were used in 75 percent of Columbus’ homicides during the past five years, when 360 lives were snuffed out with the pull of a trigger.
The potential for use of a firearm for self-defense is not mentioned even once in any of Decker’s five articles, let alone quantified.
Gun rights activists have long-complained of the presence of an anti-gun bias in the media. They’ve always assumed that this was simply the result of the reporters’ personal bias infecting their reporting (despite the fact that the SPJ Code states that journalists should “Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.”)
But a small note at the bottom of Decker’s articles suggest there is more at work than a simple lack of professionalism from yet another anti-gun reporter….
Read the Entire Article: https://tiny.cc/5uwpn
About:
Buckeye Firearms Association is a grassroots political action committee dedicated to defending and advancing the right of Ohio citizens to own and use firearms for all legal activities. Visit: www.buckeyefirearms.org