For a time, I actually had a smidgeon of respect for The Trace. I disagreed with literally everything they published, but they weren’t really trying to hide the bias, which was a step better than their allies in the mainstream media.
However, as time has gone on, the truth is that while they say they’re a newsroom and are just covering the topic, despite the obvious bias, they’ve continued to take pains to be embraced by the mainstream media as their colleagues. They’re just a newsroom, after all.
And while I was ripping The Trace over a recent piece that had the absolute worst timing for publication of any story I’ve ever seen–yes, even more than the New York Times publishing “man will not fly for a million years” just a couple of months before the Wright brother’s took off–Lee Williams at The Gun Writer took a different approach to the same story.
He ripped The Trace for what it is and what it’s not.
To be clear, the Trace is paid to produce anti-gun propaganda. They’re propagandists not journalists, and as we’ll show, they’ve certainly never had a real newsroom.
The Trace is funded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. It’s always cashed Bloomberg’s checks and it always will, but there’s a much bigger issue.
John Feinblatt is president of both the Trace and the largest anti-gun organization in the country—Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety. Everytown calls itself “the largest gun violence prevention organization in America.”
To say that’s a conflict of interest is obvious. After all, you’ve got the Trace, which claims to be “the only newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence” overseen and paid for by “the largest gun violence prevention organization in America.”
As a result, the Trace’s stories will always be propaganda rather than journalism. That’s what they’re paid for by the country’s largest anti-gun organization, which claims to be comprised of “more than 11 million mayors, teachers, survivors, gun owners, students, and everyday Americans.”
The conflict of interest is a big thing. When your boss is also the head of one of the largest gun control groups in the country, even if you have an interest in the truth on guns, it’s pretty clear that anything pro-gun wouldn’t be welcomed by the big man “upstairs” at The Trace.
You cannot report on a particular thing while maintaining ties to a group that has a definite position on the cause of that thing, without that bias creeping in. That wouldn’t be a problem if The Trace were just the anti-Bearing Arms, but it’s not. It’s treated as an equal by the mainstream media. Its reports and findings are repeated. They partner with various news organizations on various stories, all with an anti-gun bent, but are presented as just journalism.
And then there’s the makeup of this “newsroom.”
The Trace claims to be a newsroom. I’ve worked in four newsrooms. The staffing was always the same: There were always far more reporters than editors. When I became an editor, I supervised six reporters. That’s why.
The Trace is the exact opposite. According to its own data, the Trace has twice as many editors than it does reporters: 14 editors but only seven reporters.
The reason for this irregularity is simple: the Trace is far more concerned with its anti-gun mission than what its staffers may have actually found. In other words, the Trace pays more attention to how something is sold to its readers, rather than what is actually sold. It’s propaganda, after all, so they need more propagandists than they do reporters.
Bingo.
See, editors might do some writing, as Cam does here, but they’re also in charge of making sure things go according to plan with regard to what the writers themselves are putting out. I’ve had editors completely rewrite my pieces because what I put out wasn’t what they wanted on their site–this was not any part of Bearing Arms, PJ Media, or Townhall, for the record–and that’s kind of their job, to some degree, though I’d rather fix my messes myself.
Having twice as many editors is either a case of someone not understanding newsrooms, or they do and are more interested in messaging than reporting.
That’s a problem.
Commentary is fine. It’s what I do, so I’m not going to begrudge anyone else doing it, but I’m also not shy about telling people exactly what I do. I write opinion, even if I do some reporting in the process. I’m biased as hell, and everyone knows it, so they know upfront what they’re getting.
The Trace pretends to be about the objective truth, even though nothing could be further from the objective truth.
The ties with anti-gun groups, the makeup of its so-called newsroom, or the fact that they have never once appeared remotely sympathetic to the pro-gun side of the issue, even when warranted, all should be made clear when their mainstream media buddies decide to partner with them.
It has never happened, and we all know that it never will.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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