My newest piece at Fox News: "Media Matters, the facts and me"

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:

With just one telephone call this year, Erik Wemple of the Washington Post was able to convince Media Matters to let me respond to their attacks on me in the comments section of their website — after they ignored my emails, telephone calls, numerous tweets and posts for seven years. 

Media Matters purports to correct misinformation that the “conservative” media puts out, but, ironically, they have systematically hidden comments critical of their work from their readers. They have a blog where it appears that conservatives and others can respond, but they don’t tell their readers that they have regularly removed responses that they couldn’t answer. 

I have been attacked in over 80 posts on Media Matters over the years. They have even criticized reporters from such places as the Washington Post and the New York Times just for interviewing me. They have described me as a “discredited gun researcher.” They have claimed “Gun Advocate John Lott Lashes out at Trayvon Martin’s Mother.” They say I’ve misrepresented Obama’s record on guns, what “assault weapons” are and the views of police on gun control. They have used doctored pictures of me and screen shots of posts. 

Media Matters uses a hit-and-run strategy: Attack, and move on to the next attack. They never acknowledge responses, even those published in major media like the ones I’ve written for Fox News.  

If Media Matters started engaging in debates, their readers would quickly learn that their criticisms of others involve mischaracterizations, carefully edited quotes and outright lies. Their unwillingness to post contrary comments says a lot about their inability to defend themselves. 

A typical example was their March 20 post covering a piece I wrote for FoxNews.com on Vivek Murthy, President Obama's nominee for surgeon general. Media Matters’ headline read: "On Obama's Surgeon General Nominee, It's Medical Experts Vs. Discredited Gun Zealots." With 288 mainly positive comments on their post, Media Matters apparently worried that people might find the ones I posted with a link to the discussion on my website. So Media Matters simply removed my comments. . . . .

The piece continues here.

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Fortune Magazine completely mangles story on gun sales "declining"

Fortune magazine's Laura Lorenzetti makes a lot of logical mistakes in her "news" article here.

It looks like Americans may be buying fewer guns this year. 

Smith & Wesson  SWHC , the 162-year-old gunmaker, lowered its guidance for the quarter and rest of the year, even as it reported better than expected sales in its fiscal fourth quarter that ended Apr. 30. Shares of Smith & Wesson’s stock had dropped nearly 9% by the close of trading Friday following the announcement. 

The company reported sales of $170 million in its fourth quarter, higher than the average analyst estimate of about $164 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue was almost 5% less than the year-earlier quarter. . . . 

The once high-selling gun industry may be facing a comedown as incidents of gun violence have soared this year. There has been an average of almost one school shooting every week for the past year and a half, the Washington Post reported earlier this month. . . .

Does reporter Laura Lorenzetti have any idea how inaccurate the Bloomberg claim is that there was one school shooting every week for the last year and a half?  The claim that increased gun violence is responsible for a drop in sales makes many errors.  Does a sales drop for Smith & Wesson imply an overall drop in gun sales?  No.

So what do the NICS checks numbers show on gun sales (click on screenshot to enlarge it)?  NICS checks are not a perfect measure of gun sales, but it is hard to see how its biases have changed in a systematic way this past year.

With the exception of background checks in January and February, 2014's background checks exceed those in 2013 and they are well ahead of those in 2012 for all months.  Fortune incredibly fails to even mention the explosion of gun sales right after Newtown and President Obama's re-election.  Does anyone believe that January and February sales in 2013 were normal sales to make comparisons with?  Even if Smith & Wesson's sales might be down for the last quarter, sales for the entire industry during the April through June quarter look like they are still higher than 2013.  How the Fortune reporter can spin a discussion from one gun maker into a general commentary on the entire gun industry is pretty disappointing.

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John Walsh vows to continue Piers Morgan's Gun-Control campaign on CNN

Walsh will be much more effective at making this argument than Piers for the simple reason that he is much more likable.   From The Wrap:

Besides hosting “America's Most Wanted” and advocating for victims’ rights, Walsh has been a longtime advocate of background checks and other safety measures. He said he would continue that fight now that he is joining CNN as the host of “The Hunt,” a new show about catching fugitives. . . .
“I am the guy that has seen both sides of the issue,” Walsh told reporters Monday. “I own guns. I'm the father of a murdered child. I've done nothing but track violence in America since my son was murdered. We have a serious problem with guns in this country. And we refuse to address it. And the NRA solution to arm every grammar-school 80-year-old teacher with a gun is absolutely ludicrous,” he said.
Walsh said the NRA is so deeply in the pocket of the gun industry that “they're not a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, they're a gun manufacturer rep.” He also said Vice President Joe Biden recently agreed with him that politicians are “scared s—less” of the NRA. . . .

Just because background checks work well in theory doesn't mean that the current system actually works that way.  You can find out some of the problems with the background check system here and here.

Obviously the claim that the NRA wants to arm everyone in schools is a gross exaggeration.  The NRA proposal was to arm uniformed guards, something that Bill Clinton had supported when he was president, and something that I thought was a mistake because armed guards are likely to be the first target.

On polls Walsh says:

“I said to Joe Biden, '90 percent of Americans are for a responsible background check for a gun, and you know what this Congress has done? Not voted on it, not brought it to the floor, not introduced a bill,'” Walsh said. “I said, ‘They're all scared shitless of the NRA, aren't they?'” . . . 

You can find out why his claim is incorrect here. 

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The media misleading about job growth: Full-time jobs falling, part-time service sector jobs up

The media talks about what a great jobs report came out today.  Take CNN's headline: "Great jobs report: Strong hiring, unemployment down"

The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. 

That number beats economists' expectations and comes along with other good news: Job growth was revised higher for both May and April. 

Taken altogether, that means employers added 1.4 million jobs in the first six months of the year. 

That's the strongest six months for job growth since 2006.  

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is now 6.1%, down from 6.3% in May. The drop came for the right reasons: More Americans said they had jobs, plus more people joined the labor force. . . .

Barron's has the title "Dow Tops 17,000 on Stellar Jobs Report"
Jobs did rise, but they are part-time, not full-time jobs.  Indeed, full-times jobs has fell significantly and has been down slightly since the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately, the jobs are not only part-time, but about 80 percent are service sector jobs.

It is pretty amazing how the media keeps on making the economy look better than it is.

One thing that is clear is that the percentage of long term unemployed as declined since the long term unemployment insurance benefits were reduced.

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Fox News is far more trusted than other TV news: The Public Religion Research Institute and The Brookings Institution poll

Via Erik Wemple's blog at the Washington Post with the title "Ouch: MSNBC barely registers in media study":

The failure of any outlet to reap a wider Democratic/liberal audience, suggests the report, could stem from ideological diversity within the Democratic Party (46% liberal, 31% moderate and 20% conservative). . . .

An alternative explanation is that there is relatively little difference between Broadcast News, CNN, and Public Television.  Possibly MSNBC's and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart's performances is so small because there are relatively few hard leftists.

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Huffington Post on the claim that "there is absolutely no evidence" of net benefits of guns

From Mike Weisser at the Huffington Post:

The self-satisfied folks who really believe that 'guns don't kill people, people kill people,' simply refuse to accept the fact that if you pick up a gun, point it at someone else and pull the trigger, that the result is going to be very serious injuries or loss of life. There Is no other way, including running over someone with a car, that has such a devastating effect. The NRA gets around that problem by promoting, with an almost mystical reverence, the notion of using guns for self defense. John Lott's nonsense to the contrary, there is absolutely no evidence which proves that guns save more lives than they destroy. . . .

"Absolutely no evidence which [sic] proves guns save more lives than they destroy"?  Seriously?  There are four more refereed studies that have since showed that guns on net save lives, but this is a start (see the list available here).  Why is it that people want to ignore the academic work of so many other scholars?

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In the Santa Barbara killings, the media tries to avoid discussing murders committed with anything other than guns

On February 23, 2001, David Attias, a University of California-Santa Barbara freshman, "plowed his turbo-charged Saab into a group of young adults in the same Isla Vista neighborhood of the coastal community, killing four and permanently injuring another before climbing atop the car and declaring himself 'the Angel of Death.' Charged with murder, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state mental institution. He was released in 2012, having been locked away for slightly more than two years for each of his dead victims. 'He’s out because he got treatment and he finally learned what he needed to say,' said Sally Divis, whose son, Christopher, was just 20 when he was run down by Attias. 'Do I actually think he’s safe? Not really.'"

Given that both Elliot Rodger and Attias used cars to hurt people and that they occurred in the same place, you might think that the media would bring up comparisons.  But while a Google news search comes up with 156 news stories on "Elliot Rodger," there were only two news stories on "David Attias" and "Elliot Rodger."  (Click on screen shots to make them bigger.)

Google is pretty abysmal these days for any useful search.  Bing does a better job.  There are only 9 news stories that mention both names and if you limit yourself to real news services, there are four such stories.

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Britain's National Ballistics Intelligence Service/BBC claims anyone attempting to fire a 3D printed plastic gun would probably maim or even kill themselves,misleading

This BBC story is quite misleading.  Note that it is only at the very end of their video that they concede that it is indeed possible to use a 3D printed plastic gun.  From the BBC:

Police are warning technology enthusiasts not to attempt to use 3D printers to make plastic guns, because each time they have been tested the weapons have exploded.
Relatively cheap plastic printed guns have been fired successfully in the United States.
Scientists in the UK say without additional expertise and the right type of ammunition, anyone attempting to fire one would probably maim or even kill themselves.
They also point out that to do so would be illegal. . . .

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Ratio of self identified Republican to Democrat journalist falls to new low in latest poll

In 1971, the ratio of self-identified Republican to Democratic journalists was 0.72. 
1982: 0.49
1992: 0.37
2002: 0.50
2013: 0.25

These are numbers compiled from various polls by Lars Wilnat and David Weaver, professors of journalism at Indiana.

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Sharyl Attkisson talks about how reporters and the Obama White House coordinate actions

Sharyl Attkisson was talking with Chris Stigall on WPHT when she explained how things work in Washington:

“I wouldn’t surprised if sometimes there is that level of cooperation with some questions. If I need something answered from the White House and they won’t tell me, I’ll call our White House Correspondent. They’re friendlier with the White House Correspondents in general. So the White House Correspondent may ask Jay Carney or one of his folks about an issue and they will be told ‘ask that at the briefing and we’ll answer it.’ They want to answer it in front of everybody. They do know it’s coming and they’ll call on you. 

"There’s that kind of coordination sometimes. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s sometimes more coordination. I don’t think it’s everybody on every briefing, every day. I’m pretty sure it’s not. But I think people would be surprised at the level of cooperation reporters have in general with politicians.”

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More on Sharyl Attkisson's resignation from CBS

I found this pretty shocking.  From Fox News:

None of the investigative stories that Attkisson proposed in the past year were greenlighted for the “CBS Evening News”; in fact, most of her pitches were turned down. She wound up working on stories that the network assigned, say those familiar with the matter, including a string of investigative pieces on health care. But her output has declined significantly since 2008. . . .

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