Expected: Dart Rejection of Application to Workshop on Guns and Gun Violence

A couple of weeks ago, I received the expected rejection from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma on my application to attend their “workshop for journalists on covering guns and gun violence”.   I expected it because it is clear that the “workshop” has become a mere exercise in producing disarmist propaganda, rather than an objective effort designed to help journalists get their facts right on events involving guns.  To giver credit where due,  Bruce Shapiro, Director at Dart, is unfailingly polite in the rejection email.

For a short period, it seemed that there might be hope of balance, but Ray Stern, a reporter for the Phoenix New Times did some investigative journalism, and received clear answers to some pointed questions.   Ray deserves a lot of credit for his publication of the story.  It does not follow the disarmist party line.  He asked about the list of speakers.  From phoenixnewtimes.com:

But why doesn’t the lineup include any scholar who’s researched the idea that guns, or at least the defense display of guns, may often save lives?

Shapiro guffawed: “Look, guns kill people, right?” he said.

Um, okay, professor. Sorry we asked.

Stern goes on to reveal more indications of a world view antagonistic to anything positive about guns or gun ownership:

Reporters at the seminar will receive an education in how guns work, too, Shapiro confirmed. So which of the many gunsmiths or firearms dealers in Arizona did the Dart Center invite to go over that material? Maybe someone from the Ruger manufacturing plant in Prescott?

Nope — serving as the seminar’s gun-hardware expert, Shapiro said, will be journalist Marc Cooper, who wrote in 2013 that he’d subscribe to Guns & Ammo magazine after one its columnists (now fired) advocated for gun-control measures.

Ray Stearn  actually believes in journalistic integrity.  He is hardly known as someone who champions conservatives.  But it is clear that he champions the truth, at least as much as it can be found.  He also realizes that he will not be making friends at the Dart Center with this article.  The entire article is worth reading.   I know that I am going to pay more attention to articles by Stern in the future.    

The workshop will be held in a few weeks, on the 29th and 30th of May, 2015.   With a little luck we will find out who attended and how things went.   I also hope to find some information on who was turned down, beside myself.

I know that the foremost academics on the interaction of the media with the gun culture, and on media coverage of guns and their uses, Professors Brian Anse Patrick and John Lott, specifically, were not included on the list of speakers.

I personally suggested both of their names.

 Definition of  disarmist 

 ©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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