Why Hasn’t The Media Been Reporting On Or Booking Pro-Gun Newtown Parent Mark Mattioli? (Mediaite)

Posted on: Sat, 04/13/2013 - 15:21 By: Tom Swiss

If Obama's going to exploit parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting to push his agenda, it seems fair to point out that not all of those parents agree with his plan. Funny how this gets no news coverage. From Mediaite: Why Hasn’t The Media Been Reporting On Or Booking Pro-Gun Newtown Parent Mark Mattioli?

Some of the most compelling voices in the current debate over gun violence are those who have been touched by it, particularly the parents of the twenty children slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14. It’s strange, then, that one of those parents, Mark Mattioli, has simultaneously been white-washed and virtually blacked out of the media’s post-Newtown coverage....

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...[T]he testimony of several other parents received widespread attention, particularly that of Neil Heslin, whose testimony was interruppted by shouts from gun advocates. Mattioli’s testimony, however, received very little attention, and what attention it did get was manipulated to obscure his apparent political views. The New York Times published a piece quoting Mr. Mattioli’s opposition to new gun laws, but softened the more explicitly political portion of his testimony. CNN similarly avoided Mattioli’s politics, while reporting a “divide” on gun control in Newtown.

(Of course, in a sane country we'd be looking at actual research and evidence on crime and violence to figure out whether locking people up for possessing unapproved firearms would make us safer and more free, rather than trying to dig up pathos-filled anecdotes...but, yeah, good luck on that.)