While the liberal media attack business leaders they disagree with, they are happy to help promote CEO calls for action when that action furthers the liberal agenda.
That’s what The New York Times and CNN did by promoting CEO demands for gun control legislation on Sept. 12. Crediting business leaders, the Times claimed “The market is demanding action — and businesses are listening.” Meanwhile, CNN consulted left-wing activist group Everytown for Gun Safety which reacted with praise for the “unified corporate action” on firearms.
Roughly 145 CEOs signed a letter to Congress petitioning it to pass sweeping federal gun control measures on Thursday, Sept. 12. The Times favorably reported that “The decisions by chief executives to take a stand on gun control appear to reflect the opinions of many of their customers.”
Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt told CNN, “This unified corporate action represents a sea change in American culture. The experts on America's consumers are speaking, and our elected officials should listen.”
However, things weren’t as unified as Feinblatt and CNN’s report indicated. As NBC reported, there was a “much longer” list of CEOs that did not sign the letter, while CNN acknowledged only a few “missing” names.
So much for “unified corporate action.”
According to the Times, the letter from some of the nation’s “best-known companies” urged legislators to expand “background checks to all firearms sales” and initiate “stronger ‘red flag’ laws.”
It bolstered the CEOs’ arguments by repeating the common argument that “A number of polls have put backing for such policies above 90 percent.” But the Times failed to admit that in the past, support has plummeted once there was specific gun control legislation in Congress. They also ignored the potential unconstitutionality of red flag laws, the poor enforcement of existing gun laws, or criticism of background check expansions. Economist John R. Lott wrote in February, that “there isn’t one such attack this century” that would have been stopped by Rep. Mike Thompson’s (D-CA) current legislation to expand background checks.
CNN promoted the letter by only turning to proponents of gun control including liberal media mogul Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety and a statement from the Business Roundtable also calling for “bipartisan, commonsense legislation.” Although, the story didn’t mention the megadonor’s connection and funding for Everytown. The organization was an outgrowth of Bloomberg’s pledge to spend $50 million on the 2014 election cycle as part of a broad gun control push.
