On Working With the Media

I note that our blood enemies have launched their own "media education program," bankrolled by the nasty little fascist in New York:

To help journalists and news organizations in the Southwest improve their reporting on guns and gun violence, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School is organizing a two-day regional workshop April 17 and 18, 2015 for reporters, editors, news directors, photographers, producers, and bloggers. The workshop, funded by Everytown for Gun Safety, will offer independent expert briefings and specialized reporting skills training to enhance the practical ability of journalists to report on guns and gun violence knowledgeably, ethically and effectively. The workshop will cover such topics as state and federal gun laws; patterns of gun sales and gun trafficking; national trends and polling; education and prevention initiatives; social, economic and public health impacts; and special populations (e.g. children and youth, women and returning veterans.)  

Speakers include national public health and policy experts; researchers and clinicians; award-winning journalists, and prevention advocates and survivors.

I note that Dart is offering $350 "travel and expense" stipends to 15 select journalists. Guess where that $350 comes from?

I've seen a lot of buzz on the Internet that basically asks why the firearms industry isn't running exactly the same program.

Well, we did.

Years ago, working with NSSF President Doug Painter, Doug and I created the Media Education Program. The Program was tweaked by Bill Brassard, who is still with NSSF, and Paul Erhardt, now with his own media company that works with IDPA, Apex Tactical and others. In the 6-year span of the NSSF Media Education Program our focus was to put guns in the hands of the journalists and teach them to shoot.

I was privileged to oversee a cadre of instructors that has never been equalled, including Jerry Miculek, Kay Clark, Randi Rogers, "Evil Roy," Bruce Gray, Todd Jarrett, Chris Edwards from GSSF, Walt Rauch from IDPA, Dave Thomas from USPSA, Lisa Munson, Dave Arnold, Dave Lauck, Olympic athletes, top law enforcement trainers like Bill Murphy, top military trainers, etc.

In working with my instructors beforehand, I emphasized that they were to answer any and every question as honestly and thoroughly as possible, because we all fundamentally believed in the correctness and, for lack of a better word, the honor of our cause. Whenever possible, we wanted to show, not tell. In my other conversations with media experts on our side, I steadfastly held to our position of not proselytizing the Second Amendment…my feeling (which proved to be true) was that our students would arrive in the same place through the training. That is, we arranged the cart and the horse in their proper configuration.

We structured the Program on the writings of Malcolm Gladwell, which were revolutionary at the time. The situation we found was that most journalists (and this is unfortunately still the case) unconditionally accept every word from the antigun side as gospel truth handed down on a marble tablet. Our primary concept as articulated by myself and Erhardt was that we weren't trying to "convert" the journalists to our side; rather, we thought of ourselves like a defense attorney in a capital case...we weren't trying to "convert" the jurors to our side of the story; rather we wanted to create a small shadow of doubt that every word coming from our enemies was true. If we could plant that doubt, we had succeeded.

We were also not afraid to reach out to there who shared our views. I brought trainers from the Pink Pistols, the largest gay self-defense group, on board. And yes, I took a lot of crap — a LOT of crap! — for it. But it was the right thing to do. My absolute statement was that people who shoot, hunt, compete with firearms, carry guns for self-defense...they are our friends! Deeds, not words.

The Media Education Program was the most successful media outreach ever attempted by the gun culture. At the beginning of the Program, Sarah Brady had bragged that with one phone call in the morning she could be on all 3 national networks (3 national networks…isn't that quaint???) by that evening; the Program broke Brady's stranglehold on the news without directly attacking the antigun "spinners." We made unprecedented inroads into the antigun media...and it drove our enemies crazy. I even got an email from a prominent antigun activist who had, ironically, come up through magazine journalism much as I had. His email read, "Who ARE you?" My answer, equally cryptic, was, "I am you."

The Program was expanded into Hollywood with the now semi-legendary stunt, property master, armorer and action/second unit director events, addressing the antigun biases in Hollywood once again through training and, honestly, exposure to our marvelous team of instructors. After the first 2 events, major Hollywood directors and even well-known actors began asking about upcoming events and whether they could attend. We expanded the Program again into fiction, working with the Mystery Writers of America to produce an event for their national convention that the group called the best, most successful event ever held by that group. My plan was to keep chipping away at American popular culture, based on concepts created by myself and Paul Erhardt on the "normalization" of firearms in American society.

We succeeded beyond our wildest crazy-ass best-case projections. The industry still benefits from the Program, which ended years ago. We forged alliances within the shooting sports and training community and helped everyone to understand the importance — and the power —  of speaking with a single voice and staying on message.

There are many great stories that came out of the Program. I tend to remember our victories...there was one antigun columnist in California who started his column on the Program with something to the effect that one usually thought of gun owners as "ignorant hillbillies," but that "these people are slick, sophisticated and they almost sold me!" LOL! I loved it when the Brady organization called me "crazy" in the New York Times.

In the end, the industry decided that such events were too expensive to continue. Yes, they were expensive. But the payoff was huge. Worse, I think we as an industry simply retreated from dealing with the MSM, and like a stretched rubber band, it popped back to shorter than it was before. The industry to the best of my knowledge maintains no media outreach.

Here's one last little bit of irony. Note the "$350 expense stipend" offered for this event. The bottom of the one-pager put our by Dart Center reads, "This workshop is being made possible by a generous grant from Everytown for Gun Safety."

When we ran the Media Education Program, we initially considered offering journalists a travel stipend to help them get to the event. The journalists I bounced the idea off of were ENRAGED, furious that I would even consider such an "unethical" action. How dare I suggest they take money from the "gun lobby?" And yet how easily they take money from the antigun lobby...

Me thinks any "journalist" who accepts the $350 "stipend" is a whore.