Media Fails; Blames NRA

When I first noticed the “welcome” piece from the Indianapolis Star I didn’t comment on the bits where the author implied that NRA & the convention bureau were trying to keep the convention a secret, claiming that “the NRA was uncharacteristically low-key about its plans” and that tourism officials were “not touting one of the largest convention it’s bagged in years.” I just thought it was part of his hit piece.

It turned out that this seems to be a common view in the Indy media based on this article. They say that NRA is blaming a miscommunication, but they still imply that NRA was trying to hide their location.

It’s as if local reporters are looking to bash NRA for their own failures. Just in a quick search, we’ve been talking about Indianapolis as a known location since early 2012. It hasn’t been a secret. No one has been hiding anything, nor has NRA been particularly low-key. They usually don’t start advertising until the year of the event. This year, it’s a little more complex since a good portion of the people in driving distance are also in driving distance of the Harrisburg sportsman’s show, one of the largest shows in the country, that starts this weekend. They have to balance out advertising for each event, which historically hasn’t been an issue. Regardless, the fact that Indy is hosting the convention has not been some big secret, contrary to their assertions.

It’s as if the media is so desperate to attack NRA that they are now reaching make up new controversies that really comes down to a situation where journalists are just too lazy to use Google.

21 thoughts on “Media Fails; Blames NRA”

  1. You’d think that a journalist eager to learn the secret plans of the NRA would at least… I dunno… follow its Twitter feed, maybe?

    One of these days, I’m gonna sprain my eye-rolling muscles. ;)

    1. It makes me wonder if they have even heard of the internet in Indianapolis. I didn’t think you guys were that cut off from the world out there in what must clearly be the wild, wild west. :)

        1. I’m sure many of the members of the MSM would prefer it if you guys didn’t have access to the fancy interwebz so you all would have to rely on the paper & radio for their “interpretation” of the news. :)

          1. Bitter, I work in the MSM. I know why they suck at Internet ingest (inertia and — still! In 2014! — a very strong anti-tech bias in the newsroom) and on their own websites (outsourcing site design, support and servers to ripoff idiots — see “anti-tech bias,” above — and a flawed revenue model)

            Let’s just say I’m in a position to know why they missed the NRA coming to town, *despite* a number of shooters and NRA members on the (non-News) staff. The quick read is “press-release journalism.” NRA didn’t send ’em a timely press release (or if they did, it was tossed unread along with all the other looks-like-junk-mail the Newsroom gets) and therefore they knew nothing (non-News staff input is ignored; remember that “anti-tech bias?” Geeks are uncool and we are all geeks other than News and Sales) until the Convention Center’s own, very late press release arrived (because they don’t want to steal thunder from their other events, they often won’t send them out until the event in question is The Next Big Thing). At that point, shock, horror, the NRA is coming to Our Town? Why, those sneaky rats, why didn’t they send us an engraved invitation, months ago? (Yeah, why? Because NRA is so warmly received by traditional media? Because a national organization has contact data for all the relatively small-time local media? Because a diligent news operation would have gotten out and dug it up for themselves?)

            You may judge the state of journalism in Indiana by the fact that the convention appears to have been a surprise to *every* media outlet in the state — newspapers, TV, wire services. I’m not listing radio because AFAIK, there aren’t any traditional news operations in the radio stations here; what locally-produced news you get is all rip’n’read wire copy.

            But it would be an insulting mistake to generalize from the local media to the wider population. The Indy 1500 gun shows are routinely among the largest guns shows in the nation, both in number of vendors and number of attendees.

            …It’s very tempting to jump salty when you East Coast types casually diss Hoosiers. Fine, fine, we’re ignorant savages. With very good gun laws. And darned good restaurants. I’m already screwed out of seeing most of the NRA convention thanks to a Big Event my employer is running the same weekend, all hands on deck; it would be nice to not take paper cuts from my own side, too.

            1. Wow, I have no idea where you got the idea that I look down on Indiana gun owners. I figured the smiley attached to the comment you responded to would give the clue that I was joking about the notion that you guys are ignorant or cut off since pretty clearly it’s the reporters who fundamentally misunderstand the gun culture and were simply too lazy to catch this story back when it was announced as a convention site years ago.

              As for judging Indiana harshly in terms of the media, you might recognize that this is a common theme in every city with hostile media for NRA. They usually don’t try to make the false claim that NRA is hiding their convention locations like they have this year, but they usually do some kind of rude “welcome,” frequently more hostile than what we’ve seen so far from Indy. We cover these trends in media every single year as part of the convention news, regardless of the city. It’s not an explicit attack on Indy, it’s covering the hostility of many MSM media types on gun owners who are NRA members.

              I really don’t know where the idea that I’m some “East Coast type” who views you as some kind of “ignorant savage” comes from. I’m from freakin’ rural Oklahoma, so I know a thing or two about being unfairly judged on that front. Where are you picking up that I’m so terribly hostile to Hoosiers and actually think you’re all so dumb and backwards?

              1. “It makes me wonder if they have even heard of the internet in Indianapolis” –I get that kind of comment a LOT in RL; for Hoosiers, it’s a conditioned response to snap back. The nickname for residents of my state is more widely and more insultingly used than “Okie” these days. (Yes, yes, Okies left, the nickname is “Sooner;” I was striving for an analogous thing.)

                So, okay, no personal offense taken. I don’t think our media are all that much more shallow or ignorant than local medial elsewhere; they came up with a damfool narrative, based on the the notion that “if it’s news to us, it must be News to you,” and they’ve run with it. AFAIK, this started in — gulp — my own employer’s shop. We tried to set ’em straight but it was no use.

  2. The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce is extremely aggressive in announcing the FFA convention, the National Walnut Growers Convention, the National Association of Earhair Pluckers, so the Star thought it odd that NRA would not have been promoted earlier.

    I invited the author to the convention. I hope he takes me up on it.

  3. But … if they looked at the NRA’s web pages they might get cooties.

    Gun cooties.

  4. “really comes down to a situation where journalists are just too lazy to use Google.”

    Or too stupid.

  5. …and if they heavily advertised it these same lame reporters would be screaming, “OMG, what about the childrenz!!!”

    The reporters deserve zero respect for their 0% effort and 100% bias. Makes me pine for the good old days of yellow journalism.

    1. You are correct. I can’t remember exactly what city it was, but some media outlet complained in a hit piece about NRA convention advertisements all over their city one year. It really is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, they’ll blame us all anyway.

  6. If we get in the wayback machine, the Star wasn’t such a bad rag, but then Gannett bought it, and they kept the mental deficients like Tully and Carpenter. Tully’s the kind of schmuck that thinks the good guys shouldn’t have guns in parks. Recently I had a guy try to solicit me to subscribe, I told him I’d then feel a need for a bird cage. You should’ve seen the editorial from the hysteric in Lafayette. Apparently we’re going to be 70000 maniacs in the convention center!

  7. I think they are just butthurt that the NRA didn’t bother to send them press packets.

    Must suck to be irrelevant.

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