Lott: Part of it you can explain because of what is newsworthy. If you're an editor and you have two stories and one has a dead body on the ground and a sympathetic victim, and the other has a woman brandishing a gun at a would-be attacker who has run away with no shots fired, no crime actually committed, I think everybody would find the first story more newsworthy. The problem is that doesn't explain everything.
I would change the word "newsworthy" to "sensational" for accuracy. Maybe "liberally biased sensationalism" would be more accurate.
I would change the word "newsworthy" to "sensational" for accuracy. Maybe "liberally biased sensationalism" would be more accurate.
I'd agree with his use of the term "newsworthy". A woman who reaches for her waistband and causes a would-be rapist to flee is no more newsworthy than someone who manages to swerve his car to avoid a collision.
Although there are many defensive gun uses which are newsworthy (e.g. woman shoots rapist), there are many more which are not newsworthy because they represent non-events. In many if not most cases, a defensive gun use will result in the would-be assailant aborting an attack before committing any provable crime. As such, there wouldn't really be anything to report.