Gun control is the narrative pushed by the mainstream media, and it appears some outlets don’t disclose that their writers are also paid by anti-gun groups, including one owned by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
John Lott, Jr. wrote about the issue for RealClearPolitics, explaining that various news outlets have hired people from one Bloomberg-funded gun-control organization known as The Trace.
“NPR, Politico, Time, and Scientific American are unlikely ever to pay an NRA employee to write news articles about gun control. But they have no problem hiring people who work for The Trace, a Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control organization. Even in the very hypothetical case that these publications did use an NRA-influenced article, they would undoubtedly include a disclaimer warning readers of the possible bias,” Lott wrote.
Yet The Trace is given preferential treatment. As Lott pointed out, NPR described The Trace as “an independent, nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to covering issues related to guns in America.”
When Lott told a senior writer at Scientific American that its contributing editor, Melinda Wenner Moyer, is also paid by The Trace to write regular articles for the outlet, the editor “insisted that none of his staff had a conflict of interest and that The Trace was a nonprofit newsroom.”
“This past week, Moyer had a piece at The Trace arguing that the increase in gun sales over the last few months is linked to the recent surge in urban shootings. In another, she claimed that guns don’t keep one’s family safer,” Lott argued. “But Moyer fails to mention the standing down and disbandment of police units, or the release of prisoners amid the pandemic. These factors can lead to a surge in crime. She ignores that the causation with gun sales might be going the other way, with people buying guns as they see the breakdown of the legal system and having to rely on themselves for protection. Instead, she blames the 30% increase in murders in New York City or the 78% increase in Chicago in June on gun sales that increased the national supply of firearms by only a couple of percentage points.”
Lott searched The Trace’s archives and found zero articles that ever covered guns in a positive light. “Not a single one approvingly discusses research that has found a benefit from gun ownership,” he added.
Further, The Trace never says anything critical of pro-gun-control groups such as Moms Demand, The Brady Campaign or another Bloomberg-funded organization called Everytown. Meanwhile, The Trace unironically “accuses the NRA of supporting the police because of the ‘reliable’ donations that it receives from officers,” Lott wrote.
The Trace focuses a lot on the money behind organizations that support the Second Amendment, yet its own funding hypocrisy is ignored by mainstream media outlets. Those same outlets hire writers from The Trace without noting any conflict of interest.