Hindsight from The New Gun Week December 1, 1999
Helping to Publicize the Shooting Sports
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
There probably is no one in the shooting sports who has not complained at one time or another about the way the general media treats the shooting sports.There seems to be no coverage whatsoever of organized shooting competitions, except for the occasional feature when a major shooting match becomes a "local" interest story, like the National Matches might be to the Port Clinton-Toledo, OH, media.
Certainly newspapers and TV stations in San Antonio, Dayton, OH, or Columbia, MO, cover the National Skeet Shooting Association's major events, the ATA's Grand American, or the NRA Bianchi Cup Action Shooting Nationals respectively. But these are exceptions.
Part of the problem is that most sports/news editors don't consider any activity a "sport" unless there is a ball involved. Even track meets, motor racing, cycling or rowing get very little attention.
ContrastBy contrast, however, there seems to be no end to coverage of the criminal misuse of firearms. Sometimes, a shooting gets wall-to-wall coverage, probably because of the editorial credo that "If it bleeds, it leads."
A friend recently reported on a conversation with a cousin who decried all the recent local shootings. My friend could only recall one such recent crime at the time and mentioned it to his cousin. The cousin, however, was convinced that there had been several shootings since he had seen so many crimes reported on the morning, afternoon and evening news for two days running. It turns out that all of the newscasts were reporting on the same shooting, but you couldn't convince a casual viewer-like the cousin-that only one such event had actually occurred.
Of course, the reverse of that is also true. When someone uses a gun to prevent or terminate a crime, it may get only one mention on one TV show, if it gets any at all. The public therefore is exposed to many images of crimes committed with guns and only one showing someone legally and justifiably using a gun for protection.
As gunowners we are all frustrated by this disparity in coverage. On the one hand, there is seemingly endless coverage of the misuse of guns, very little if any coverage of their proper use for defense, and practically no coverage at all of the wholesome recreational use of different kinds of guns in all sorts of safe and disciplined competitions.
Reader LetterThis problem came to the fore at our offices recently, when Andy Breglia of Fremont, CA, a long-time Gun Week subscriber, sent us a letter with a some suggestions for dealing with the problem. Actually, Breglia's letter has one suggestion for Gun Week and another promoting action by all competitive shooters everywhere.
Normally, I might have used such a letter in the Readers' Forum, but it deserves a more detailed response. So I have tied it together with this column.
Bredglia's letter reads:
"Gun Week has a column devoted to gun shows. Why can't Gun Week also have a column listing regional and national shooting competitions giving sponsors, sanctioning bodies, addresses, and dates?
"Shooters may know the dates and locations of matches of their own shooting discipline, but may not know those of others. It is important that participants of every discipline be made aware of the events of importance concerning the other fellow's regional and national competitions. We, as shooters, need to stop being somewhat clannish about our own discipline.
"Now, if these were published, say, two months before the date of the event, this gives time for shooters of every discipline to flood the local newspapers and TV stations with requests for coverage of theirs and everybody else's major events. The idea is the same as EVERYBODY writing to their elected officials when one person's arms are threatened by the dishonorable Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and those of similar ilk in our federal and state legislatures. Just because your match rifle or trap gun is not involved when Feinstein has the hots for banning semi-auto militia arms and large capacity magazines is no reason to ignore the problem. Next week, your match rifle may be "morphed" by some HCI wordsmith into an evil sniper rifle (sic). The only national publicity we are getting now are nut cases running amok, usually in places where nobody can shoot back."
"Just as when someone's arms are threatened, it is important for all shooters to close ranks and support everyone else in hammering home the need for newspapers and TV stations to cover regional and national shooting events and support their sponsors. This will only happen when a national publication such as Gun Week, which reaches a substantial cross-section of the shooting population, publishes timely notification of everybody else's regional and national competitions, and all Gun Week readers pitch in and help.
"Frankly, I am tired of going through the sports section of the local papers and all the TV listings and finding no evidence whatsoever of a single shot fired in competition. My single-handed attempts to get TV and newspaper coverage of shooting sports has roughly the status of a Bronx cheer in a tornado. If I can get Gun Week readers involved in this process on a national scale, perhaps we can all see shooting events and other favorable publicity published in the local papers and televised on network TV," Breglia concluded.
As the beginning of my column and as Breglia's letter indicate, this is a problem that involves us all, and one we have to deal with. After all, in the minds of most Americans today, if it's not on television, it doesn't exist.
Of course, newspapers and radio are important, and any coverage in either helps the cause which concerns us here. But television is the dominant medium, and some 65% of all American get all of their news from television.
First, let's deal with Breglia's suggestion that Gun Week publish a list of all scheduled shooting events for every organized discipline.
While we wouldn't be averse to doing so, there are a number of problems, not the least of which is the sheer number of matches when combined.
The major problem is the need for continuing cooperation and timely information from all of the organizations, when most of them publish a shoot schedule in their own national and/or state publications. Frankly, the use of NRA, ATA, NSSA, NMLRA and similar organization shoot schedules would be a better source of information to serve the core information purpose that Breglia suggests.
At Gun Week, we have tried to promote separate shooting disciplines and major events for many years. Whenever possible, we try to run advance schedules at least for the largest events, and post-shoot reports.
In addition, we have published in the first issue of every month a "Shooters Corner" page for the past three years, in which several discipline-specific shooting organizations have been invited to provide a report, information on their sport and organization (and/or shoot schedule) every month. One of the purposes of the "Shooters Corner" was to encourage people in one shooting discipline to try another.
A few of the groups who were contacted have been faithful to our readers and their purposes every month-though occasionally they need prodding about deadlines. Others have been reasonably consistent with random lapses. Still others have submitted a column or two and then abandoned the project, citing the press of other duties and a lack of time. Our long-time regular readers may recall which are which.
Like the editors of other newspapers and TV news directors, we find it difficult to keep pursuing others for news and information that they are reluctant to provide. In such circumstances, we turn to other subjects, just as they do.
On the other hand, Breglia's suggestion that Gun Week readers, and competitive shooters everywhere, continue to contact editors and reporters with information about upcoming shooting events is as timely today as it ever was.
However, I would recommend that you don't merely send a typical shooting notice that would make sense to the regular competitors in that discipline. You need to provide more information about the gender, age and backgrounds of the competitors, as well as information that explains-in terms non-shooters can understand-such as what the difficulty factors of the particular discipline are.
Best of all, encourage journalists, particularly TV people, to come out and look over a match and meet some of the participants and see some of the equipment in advance of a major competition.
When possible, it is also a good idea to organize media-only competitions and charity-shoots that give the journalists a real taste of the sport.
Good media relations is an interactive enterprise.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com