Posted on 05/20/2003 1:14:40 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Reeling from NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre charging CNN with fabricating and "deliberately faking" a story last Thursday to demonstrate how a banned "assault weapon" has much more dangerous firepower than a legal model, on Monday's Wolf Blitzer Reports, substitute anchor Miles O'Brien didn't go so far as to offer a retraction, but he did concede CNN's demonstration needed further amplification.
On the May 19 edition of the 5pm EDT Wolf Blitzer Reports, O'Brien announced: "On this program on Thursday of last week, we aired a live demonstration CNN set up with law enforcement officials of a banned semiautomatic rifle and its legal counterpart. We reviewed that demonstration, and one on another CNN program, and decided that a more detailed report would better explain this complex issue."
Space limits how much I can do on this today and it's pretty hard to explain in words what CNN showed in firing range tests, but let me try to concisely run through what CNN showed on Thursday, LaPierre's angry reaction on Friday and what CNN showed in a revised demonstration on Monday which implicitly illustrated how their Thursday presentation was, at the least, misleading.
-- Thursday, May 15 Wolf Blitzer Reports, anchored by Kyra Phillips. John Zarrella traveled to the Broward County, Florida Sheriff's Office's outdoor shooting range where Sheriff Ken Jenne narrated what viewers were seeing as a deputy fired two "assault weapons."
Jenne explained why he favors keeping the ban in place: "Because I think guns are the tools of hunters, but these weapons are really the tools to kill people and there's a major, major difference."
First, a deputy fired what Jenne described as "a AK-47, the Chinese version," which is "currently banned."
Viewers saw bullets fired into a pile of cinder blocks and chunks of the cinder block flying off, leaving a big hole in one block. Then, the deputy fired into a bullet-proof vest. Zarrella observed that the bullets "clearly fired right through" the vest.
Second, Jenne set up the next model to be tested: "This is an AK-47 also, but a civilian model. It has some differences and right now this only has a clip of 10 in the magazine -- or 10 rounds in the magazine. So this is a big difference than the 30 rounds in the previous magazine."
Viewers then saw the deputy fire four shots toward the cinder blocks, but nothing happened, not even a speck of the cinder block flew off, never mind any hole being created.
The very clear implication: The illegal model punches right through cinder block with devastating and deadly force, but the legal model can't even cause a speck to fall off.
Upon looking at the MRC videotape frame by frame, with the first rifle you could see a puff of smoke coming out of the end of the barrel as the deputy fired. But with the second gun, you could not see anything, as if no bullet were being fired. And if one was, the deputy either missed the target cinder blocks, or had good enough aim to be firing into the hole created by the first rifle.
Sheriff Jenne, Zarrella didn't bother to note, is a Democrat. From Jenne's bio on the Sheriff's office Web site:
"Sheriff Jenne was elected to the Florida Senate in 1978 and retained that position for 18 of the next 20 years. He held all of the top committee chairmanships and was Senate Democratic Leader when Governor Chiles chose him to become Sheriff of Broward County in January 1998, replacing the late Ron Cochran." See: www.sheriff.org
(Note how they landed the sheriff.org domain)
-- Friday, May 16 Wold Blitzer Reports, again anchored by Kyra Phillips. An angry Wayne LaPierre of the NRA charged at the start of a guest appearance:
"Apparently the only difference between the New York Times and CNN is that when a reporter for the New York Times fakes a story, he's fired, and at CNN he's not. Your bureau chief, John Zarrella, deliberately faked the story yesterday and intending to show that the performance characteristics of banned firearms on the list are somehow different from the performance characteristics of firearms not on the banned list. He was, he was implying that these were machine guns or fully automatic guns. That's not true."
Phillips retorted: "Mr. LaPierre, I have to stop you there. No one fakes stories at CNN and John Zarrella definitely did not fake a story at CNN. You're very off base."
-- Wolf Blitzer Reports, Monday, May 19, anchored by Miles O'Brien. After O'Brien conceded "that a more detailed report would better explain this complex issue" (see top of this item for full quote), Zarrella offered a detailed explanation of the differences between a legal and illegal weapon:
"This is a semiautomatic firearm. It instantly self-loads and fires one bullet for each trigger pull. The 1994 Crime Control Act says it is unlawful for a person to manufacture, transfer or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon. The law defines a semiautomatic assault weapon by name and description, listing 19 specific firearms by name that are illegal.
"The law also bans certain rifles, pistols and shotguns by description, as well as large capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The law is very specific. For a semiautomatic rifle to be banned, it must be able to use a detachable magazine and have at least two of the following features: A flash suppressor, a bayonet mount, a pistol grip, a folding or telescoping stock, or a grenade launcher."
Zarrella admitted a major NRA talking point, and thus contradicted the clear implication of his Thursday demonstration: "In fact, if you fire the same caliber and type bullets from the two guns," one illegal and one legal, "you get the same impact."
Viewers then saw two of the "assault weapons" being fired at cinder blocks at an indoor range.
Zarrella previewed the first rifle: "Here is a .223 caliber bullet fired from a banned AR-15 rifle." Big chunks of the cinder block fell away. "Now, the legal version of that rifle," Zarrella explained before the same guy fired the second rifle. But this time, only a very small hole was created in the cinder block.
That prompted Zarrella to clarify: "The smaller hole made by the second gun has nothing to do with the gun or ammunition. The shooter just hit the second target more times in the same place."
In other words, the Thursday demonstration, in which the legal assault weapon caused no damage to the cinder block, was very misleading and very possibly an outright fabrication.
CNN deserves credit for re-visiting their earlier story in which, for all I know, they may have been the victims of the sheriff's shenanigans. But given how the clear implication of the demonstration was just plain wrong, that illegal assault weapons cause much more damage than legal models which have much less firepower, CNN still owes its viewers a more explicit acknowledgment that they visually conveyed a distortion of reality.
This sort of thing used to be standard media fare; now it's just laughable, idiotic garbage.
The Blitzer Report
Zero tolerance for distortions, falsehoods in journalism
This column was taken in part from Wolf's commencement address delivered at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication on Monday.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The scandal rocking The New York Times right now is a journalistic low point. I am referring to the shocking news that a supposedly bright and talented young reporter, Jayson Blair, was a liar and a plagiarizer. Instead of reporting all the news that's fit to print, he simply made it up as he went along. I know all of you have been following this scandal, and while it's certainly not the first time that a journalist has been caught cheating -- many of you will remember the Janet Cook affair at The Washington Post and the Stephen Glass affair at The New Republic -- it seems to be have been the most sustained.
Here's what worries me so much. So many Americans already have a rather low regard for journalists; so many of our viewers, readers and listeners simply don't trust us. Many of them, according to public opinion polls, believe we have political agendas and biases that taint our reporting. And many of our news consumers, no doubt, suspect we often make things up -- whether to advance a political cause, or settle personal scores, or sell newspapers and increase ratings on television. What has now happened at The New York Times has simply fueled those suspicions.
It will now take The New York Times a long time to win back the trust of its readers. The top editors and executives at that newspaper have begun the process but they still have a lot of explaining to do. And in the process of explaining, they should be as open as possible with their readers.
Journalism is not a perfect science. It is often referred to as a first draft of history. And as all of you know, a first draft can occasionally be sloppy. Yes, we will make mistakes. But those are unwitting mistakes. There must be zero tolerance for deliberate distortions, false reporting and fiction writing in the guise of journalism. They cannot be tolerated.
Healthy skepticism is critical in doing our job. In my experience, if a story sounds too good to be true, it almost always is. Check and re-check and triple-check those sources. There are people with agendas trying to use us for their own purposes. And there are others who simply get their kicks out of advancing hoaxes on the news media. Those of us in the business of reporting have to err on the side of caution -- even if that means losing a scoop.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/wolf.blitzer.reports/
Funny: I don’t see any mention of their own “scandal.” Perhaps CNN is still 'triple-checking those sources'...
;>)
BTW I don't know that much about these guns except that it was used, I think it is pre-ban (ser # starts with 93-), and was just over $530 with two 10 round and three 30 round mags. Not sure if it was a deal or not but it sure looks cool. I saw a 75 Round Drum on gunaccessories.com that would look pretty cool on it too.
Got 1000 rounds for $90 and plan to shoot some up this weekend.
Stupid question for those in the know: don't the 30 round mags and the 75 Round Drum all have to be pre-ban (I'm in GA not CA)?. My dealer seemed to have quite a few 30 round mags for not a whole lot of $ - but I want to do the right thing.
Funny how that works, huh? They tell us what we should not own, then we then go out and purchase it. I had little interest in military-type semi-autos before, say, 1987. When the rhetoric began, I changed to purchasing priorities. Heck, I even purchased magazines for firearms I didn't yet own, when I found good deals at gunshows. :-)
BTW I don't know that much about these guns except that it was used, I think it is pre-ban (ser # starts with 93-), and was just over $530 with two 10 round and three 30 round mags. Not sure if it was a deal or not but it sure looks cool. I saw a 75 Round Drum on gunaccessories.com that would look pretty cool on it too.
A pre-ban Norinco (stamped steel receiver?) for $530? Not bad, not bad at all. The forged receiver version is usually more expensive, but the stamped version works just fine and weighs less. Which brings me to that drum. Fun, fun, fun... but heavy when loaded. Yes, you'll probably want one. Wait a while, though... the prices might just come down in 18 months or so. Keep your fingers crossed.
Among those sipping White House coffee with the president was Wang Jun, a guest of Charlie Trie. Wang Jun heads a Chinese government company that was later charged with smuggling 2,000 AK-47 automatic rifles into the U.S.
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They lie bigtime. It's like the lie of the day from them, or Lie dejour?sic..whatever. CNNSUCKS
That's right. Just watch out for people selling post-bans with the LE designation sanded off. Unfortunately, it happens, but it's not hard to spot as long as you're aware of it.
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Another day, another CNN lie. How long are they going to be allowed to stay in business whilst telling lies every day?!
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