Friday morning, the Louisville Courier-Journal gave the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America priceless free publicity by promoting the group's "event on gun violence Saturday at Spalding University in Louisville."
Reporter/promoter Deborah Yetter relayed the group's hype that "Due to limited space, organizers are asking people to register in advance for free tickets." As seen after the jump, the space may have been "limited," but the attendance at Saturday's event was even more limited:
The Moms Demand Action group, headed by Shannon Watts, intended to present itself as a attention-worthy voice against the 70,000 or so expected to attended the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville this weekend.
Reporter Matt Glowicki's post-event coverage Saturday at the Courier-Journal conveniently avoided mentioning the size of the crowd:
... Shannon Watts, who founded the group in Indianapolis a day after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, said the organization regularly has events in cities with NRA events to make sure a counter message is heard.
“I believe the emotion and the passion of women in this country is the very obvious counter to the extremism and nihilism of this very small group of vocal gun extremists,” Watts said.
She contends her organization’s aim is "common sense” and that she and fellow advocates aren’t seeking to strip citizens’ of guns.
Ms. Watts has a lot of nerve talking about a "small group" with 5 million members able to draw a crowd of 70,000 mostly paying their own way to its national convention, when we're quite confident that Michael Bloomberg's "Everytown" gun-grabbing group is funding part or all of her Moms Demand Action efforts. Of course, reporter Glowicki didn't note the contrast.
Watts' contention that her group isn't interested in taking law-abiding citizens' guns is betrayed by the gun-grabbing legislation and gun-grabbing politicians it has supported.
The Courier-Journal almost got away with concealing the crowd's pathetic size. But it forgot to tell its photographers to be careful with their captions, resulting in a damning caption accompanying the following photo (cropped for presentation here):
"Dozens." Wow.
Most national news organizations have figured out that following the Moms Demand Action group is a waste of time and resources. Lengthy coverage of the NRA convention at the Associated Press appropriately ignored the Moms group. But local news outlets haven't gotten the message, and as a result routinely beclown themselves, as the Courier-Journal just did.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
