Meanwhile, Back at Journalism 101...

...so what do my two stories have to to with CBS. 60 MINUTES in particular?

Let's count the ways:

1) The elevation of "advocates" to "sources" to "experts." The Violence Policy Center is not an "educational" group, despite what their Google hit says. It is an advocacy group with a long history of "disinformation" — for example, read their smears on researcher John Lott, which have been repeatedly discredited. Yet CBS and 60 MINUTES repeatedly allows VPC spokespeople a platform and a latitude that is certainly outside the bounds of journalistic norms and, to me, crosses into unethical behavior. This from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics:

• Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

2) 60 MINUTES aired material on .50 caliber rifles that either it knew to be false or was unwilling to investigate to find out whether it was false or not. That is unethical by any and all journalistic standards. Again, from the SPJ Code of Ethics:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

The problem here, which the VPC knows only too well, is that mis/dis-information becomes, like my number, an entity unto itself, moving into the overall body of knowledge without regard of whether it is factual or not.

3) In its demonstration of the .50's ability to penetrate steel plate, there was no discussion of bullet composition, or, in other words, there was no attempt to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the .50 and the smaller caliber rifle. This from the 60 MINUTES transcript:

But New York City’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the .50-caliber rifle is in a class by itself. He agreed to show 60 Minutes just how powerful the .50 caliber is.

First, a police sharpshooter fired the NYPD’s own .30 caliber sniper rifle at a steel target. Downrange, three football fields away, the three shots from the .30 caliber rifle bounced off the half-inch thick steel.

"You can see it hasn’t penetrated it," says Kelly.

Then the sharpshooter fired three rounds from a Barrett .50-caliber rifle at the same target.

"Went right through," says Kelly. "It is clearly a weapon of war, a round to be used in a wartime situation. It’s appropriate for the military. The effective range is about 2,000 yards. It’s a very formidable weapon."

It is a formidable weapon! But how about some apples-to-apples?

Here's a challenge for Commissioner Kelly: Sir...I would like to repeat the test you did on Sunday's show. Using the NYPD sharpshooter's rifle used in the original demonstration, I would like to fire five shots at the same steel plates engaged by the sharpshooter at the exact same distance. I challenge you — after signing the appropriate liability releases, of course — to stand behind the steel plates directly behind the bullseye. Based on your own demonstration, you should have absolutely nothng to worry about. Oh, by the way, I get to pick the bullets!

Any problems with that, other than the fact that you're going to look like young Swiss cheese at the end of this "demonstration?" Not to mention dead, since I'm likely to choose...oh, I don't know...how about armor-piercing round XM993 .30 caliber, rated at punching holes through a half-inch of not just steel target, but full military armor-plate at 300 meters? Starting to sweat yet, Commissioner?

And as Commissioner Kelly must know (He is a police commissioner, right? Don't they have to know something about law enforcement?), there are police- and military-only rounds out there that make the XM993 look like you're shooting marshmallows. C'mon, Commish, what'd you have your sniper shoot the plate with, a nice .308 hollow-point or even the thin metal- jacketed Federal Match King?

This from the SPJ Code of Ethics:

• Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events.

Finally, let me quote this from the same Code of Ethics:

Journalists should:
• Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
• Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
• Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
• Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

BOTTOM LINE: 60 MINUTES owes Ronnie Barrett an apology and we viewers an explanation of why, when the subject is guns, ethics go flying out the window!