Some facts are too convenient for the media to check, or retract.
Earlier this week Newsbusters reported [1] that the media hyped a statistic about school shootings that originated from Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group “Everytown for Gun Safety.’ There have been, according to the widely reported stat, 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook. The media dutifully repeated the number until it was debunked [2].
While CNN later retracted and amended their reporting of the questionable count to a much lower number, 15, NBC and ABC did not bother to correct their stories using that statistic. On last night’s ‘The Five’ Fox host Greg Gutfeld blasted the media for promoting false stats and getting in the way of true progress:
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld took issue with the media’s blatant blindness to the true data on Thursday’s “The Five.”
“By inflating statistics you magnify the distrust already present in a public who sense your fibs are leading to force. By distorting tragedy to push for sweeping reform, prevents real progress in stopping madmen.”
Think Progress [3] and other liberal media did not agree with CNN’s retraction. Apparently neither did the broadcast networks, as they still have not retracted their earlier broadcasts.
As Matt Balan wrote [4] Wednesday, NBC spent two segments promoting Everytown’s false data. ABC also did its part in spreading false information provided by the anti-gun group.
“How could this happen again?” anchor David Muir asked on “World News by Diane Sawyer” June 10. “By one count, this is at least the 74th school shooting since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.”
Again the next morning, on “Good Morning America,” Robin Roberts lamented, “This is the 74th school shooting since the tragedy at Sandy Hook. You see the map there, showing the locations of each incident, an unthinkable nationwide epidemic.”
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— Kristine Marsh is Staff Writer for MRC Culture at the Media Research Center. Follow Kristine Marsh on Twitter. [5]