I had expressed skepticism a while back about getting a fair story out of NBC on guns, but despite Newsbusters pooh-poohing piece, I find no fault with how any of the participants handled Farrow’s jabs:
The end result, I think, is a pretty fair piece. I think it’s clear from the lines of questioning, they would have exploited any opportunities here, but the interviewees didn’t give them much to work with.
I’m very torn on the value of speaking to media. With rare exceptions, I’ve ignored media inquires unless the person contacting me is someone known to be fair. But the other side of the coin is getting our message out there.
There are way more well spoken, media-savvy people coming up in the new gun culture, thank god. Hopefully some of them will get gigs as clickmill writers, if the Washington Time’s “10 top handguns of 2015” articles become a trend.
I think unless you are very savvy, know how things get edited, and know how to deal with hostile media (even though they may present themselves as not), it is better to politely decline than give them the opportunity to butcher your words for their side.
This is the one place where being publicly attached/affiliated with the NRA is a negative, the MSM would not give anyone from/with the NRA a fair shake. These folks are not strongly connected with the NRA (they’re probably members, but not official spokespeople, etc).
I notice in the clip you posted that they kept Farrow’s question about “karate can’t wipe out a whole school of children,” but cut her wonderful answer about how karate might not save a whole school of children like a gun can. It shows that if you talk to the media, even if you win the verbal sparring with them, they’ll just cut your answer.