As NewsBusters laid out on Monday, the “mass shooting” statistics peddled by the Gun Violence Archive are objectively misleading according to mass killings researchers and gun experts. But the truth wasn’t reached for comment on struggling CNN+ and Reliable Sources Daily on Tuesday and host Brian Stelter demanded that the media push the false statistic that there have been “145 mass shootings in the U.S. already this year.”
Stelter began the segment by admitting “‘Mass shooting’ sometimes has a very specific connotation. People think of mass killings. Maybe a dozen or more killed.” But he then campaigned to throw out that understanding in favor of a vaguer and ambiguous definition to jack the number up:
But there have actually been 145 mass shootings in the U.S. already this year. A mass shooting as defined as four or more people shot. 145 of those. More than one mass shooting per day. In fact, there were just 10 this past weekend across the united states.
This data comes from the Gun Violence Archive [GVA] as well as CNN reporting.
In comments to NewsBusters, The Reload founder Stephen Gutowski noted that the definition of “mass shooting” used by the GVA was “popularized by gun-control activists on Reddit” and it “increases the number of mass shootings by a factor of ten or more.”
In 2021, Northeastern University’s James Alan Fox, a mass killings researcher of over 40 years and who maintains a database for the Associated Press and USA Today, has also said the GVA’s numbers paint a false narrative of the attacks. “On average, there’s one person killed per case. Like half of the cases, no one gets killed. And three-quarters, it’s either none or one,” he broke down the numbers.
He also argues that the GVA and thus the media’s reliance on it creates an “exaggerated view of the risk.” Adding: “The kind of shootings that people really think about the public massacres – on average, there are about a half-dozen a year. In 2018, there were 10. And in 2019, I believe there were nine … in a population of 330 million people, you certainly can’t call the actions of 9 or 10 people an epidemic.”
And in their methodology, GVA admits to intentionally stripping out the context:
Our definition of gun violence is intended to be fully inclusionary of disparate elements of gun related incidents...in that, all types of shootings are included, whether OIS, accidental, children shooting themselves, murders, armed robberies, familicide, mass shootings, DGU, Home Invasions, drivebys and everything else.
To make things even more ridiculous, Stelter brought on CNN reporter Josh Campbell, whose claim to fame was once being disgraced former FBI Director James Comey’s assistant, to whine about being on the mass shootings beat.
In an attempt to defuse the obvious argument of ‘if there really were that many mass shootings, then why haven’t you covered them,’ Campbell lamented: “But what we’ve found is there are so many of them, oftentimes coverage of one get eclipsed by coverage of a new one (…) And so, you can imagine the amount of resources that go into trying to cover these incidents and just trying to keep up in and of itself is something that’s really challenging.”
He also wanted people to feel bad for him so he whined about having to be ready to do his job at any time:
Inside my house, I have a suitcase that sits by the door, the go bag. Because if something happens and we need to rush out the door to cover a story, that’s always ready. And even if as I’m driving around Los Angeles. If I’m on the weekend, I’m constantly checking the traffic – what is the distance to the L.A. bureau – here in Los Angeles just in case there’s a mass shooting this weekend that I have to get to.
Campbell tried to make it seem like preparing such a bag was uncommon in the journalism field, but in reality, it wasn’t. Journalists covering the presidents, political campaigns, natural disasters, global affairs est. all need to be ready to travel at a moment’s notice.
Stelter shouldn’t even be touting CNN’s reporting on mass shooting either. In 2018, NewsBusters caught CNN inflating school shooting numbers with cases that no reasonable person would count, including accidental discharges during police-led training exercises on school grounds on the weekend.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN+’s Reliable Sources Daily
April 19, 2022
11:09:20 a.m. EasternBRIAN STELTER: “Mass shooting” sometimes has a very specific connotation. People think of mass killings. Maybe a dozen or more killed. But there have actually been 145 mass shootings in the U.S. already this year. A mass shooting as defined as four or more people shot. 145 of those. So many injuries so much needless suffering. More than one mass shooting per day. In fact, there were just 10 this past weekend across the united states.
This data comes from the Gun Violence Archive as well as CNN reporting. CNN’s headline here reads, “2 house parties, an Easter party, and mall were among the sites.” So, why doesn’t this get the coverage that it used to?
(…)
Josh, you’ve been trying to put a spotlight on this I think in a really important, vivid way. That there are so many of these mass shootings – they are not mass killings but mass shootings that end up barely even getting national news coverage. It’s as if we’ve raised the bar too high for this needless violence.
JOSH CAMPBELL: It certainly seems that way. And I have to tell you, this is an ongoing frustration. And what we’ve noticed as of late is – we do our best to try to cover these incidents as they happen because they’re obviously important, they’re impacting communities across the country not just big cities. They can happen in any town.
But what we’ve found is there are so many of them, oftentimes coverage of one get eclipsed by coverage of a new one. You mentioned, just over this weekend 10 mass shootings in the United States. And so, you can imagine the amount of resources that go into trying to cover these incidents and just trying to keep up in and of itself is something that’s really challenging.
But I have to tell you, Brian, this is a frustrating, depressing beat to cover. We do cover it obviously, but it’s one of those issues that you see happening and they continue to happen again.
And there are a lot of stories that we cover where we try to spotlight ‘well, what’s the cause, what’s behind this?’ We know what the solutions are, there are many of them to try to end the gun violence that we’re seeing in the United States. But it has become so political that we know that tomorrow there will likely be another one.
And I can tell you – just to kind of give you insight on what it’s like to be a reporter covering this. Inside my house, I have a suitcase that sits by the door, the go bag. Because if something happens and we need to rush out the door to cover a story, that’s always ready. And even if as I’m driving around Los Angeles. If I’m on the weekend, I’m constantly checking the traffic – what is the distance to the L.A. bureau – here in Los Angeles just in case there’s a mass shooting this weekend that I have to get to.
So, a frustrating beat for all of use and, indeed, the nation.
(…)
