Hit Parade

 

Often, when people find out I write for newspapers and magazines and Al Gore’s interwebnets, they say, “Oh, you’re a journalist.” Every time that happens I say, “No, I’m a writer.” OK, sometimes I tell them I’m a dolphin waxer, but for some reason no one believes me. Except for that real estate lady in Branson, Missouri. Had her going pretty good until my wife cracked up.

The main reason I differentiate between journalists and writers is Gersh Kuntzman. Well, not just him, but him and all the journalists like him. Mr. Kuntzman is a journalist for the New York Daily News, and I have to admit he’s made a lot more people laugh during the past couple of weeks than I have. I’m kind of jealous.

After the Orlando tragedy, Mr. Kuntzman decided to do a hit piece on me. Well, not me personally, but me and about 50,000 other people.He wanted to do something he’d never done before, and write about it from a no vice’s perspective. I do the same thing sometimes. I once wrote about the time I took half an airplane ride, which is a pretty stupid thing to do, unless you enjoy falling for a mile and a half.

The difference is that Mr. Kuntzman was trying to be serious. He wanted to shoot an AR-15, which he had never done, and write about the experience. Trouble was, being a resident of New York, he didn’t have the necessary freedom to do that in his home state. He had to go to Philadelphia, where liberty is still practiced on a limited basis.

The title of Mr. Kuntzman’s story was ‘What is it like to fire an AR-15? It’s horrifying, menacing and very very loud.’ Well, just the title got a lot of people laughing, and as soon as the story came out, people started posting videos of their little daughters shooting AR-15s and having fun. How embarrassing.

Mr. Kuntzman started out his article with, “It felt to me like a bazooka – and sounded like a cannon.” I’ve held a bazooka, and it doesn’t feel anything like an AR, although I have to admit an AR is pretty loud. That’s what they make ear plugs for—and suppressors.

But Mr. Kuntzman’s most celebrated paragraph probably gives the most telling insight into his horrifying experience shooting the most popular rifle in the country. He said, “The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don’t know what you’re doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions – loud like a bomb – game me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.”

Now, I guess all that is to be expected when a delicate, sophisticated, intellectual journalist shoots an AR for the first time, but I think it illustrates, better than I ever could, why I don’t want to be identified as a journalist. I have standards. Granted, they’re pretty low, but I draw the line at telling the world the diminutive 5.56x45 is capable of giving me a bruise, even if it were true. And claiming PTSD from merely shooting a low-powered rifle a few times, a rifle fired every day by little girls, seems to me to be a quantum leap to disrespect for all our brave military members who legitimately suffer from that problem. And what, exactly, does destruction smell like? I think Mr. Kuntzman needs to cut down on the caffeine.

But he wasn’t the only journalist who stuck both feet into his own mouth and took a hike lately. Neil Steinberg, who might benefit from a history lesson on what happens to disarmed people with his last name, is a journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times. He also decided to do a hit piece on me. I’m getting used to it.

Mr. Steinberg drove to Des Plaines to buy an ‘assault rifle,’ by which he meant ‘AR-15.’ That should indicate his impressive level of ignorance, beyond the fact he’s a journalist. He wanted to write about how easy it is to buy this assault rifle. Things didn’t go so well for Mr. Steinberg.

Oh, he passed the background check fine, but the store, Maxon Shooter’s Supplies, wouldn’t sell him an AR. They didn’t have to give a reason, legally, but they pointed out that Mr. Steinberg has an “admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife,” which is all true. So the system worked, beyond legality into morality, which Mr. Steinberg didn’t like one little bit. I think it bruised his ego a tad.

The resulting article contains a plethora of lies, half-truths, and false implications designed to mislead, all thinly veiled behind a guise of claimed fairness in reporting. A hit piece Mr. Steinberg wanted to write, and a hit piece Mr. Steinberg wrote. Bless his heart.

And this is why I’m not a journalist. Well, that and the fact I don’t know what destruction smells like.

But I make a pretty good dolphin waxer . . .

 

Kendal Hemphill is an astronaut and public speaker who works weekends running an automatic sprinkler system. Write to him at [email protected].

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Mr. Hemphill, I appreciate your not wanting to be identified with the two individuals you mention in your article but those are not journalists. They are propagandists or possibly publicists but they are the media version of mockingbirds. They may sound like journalists and may even look like journalists at first glance but don't let the camouflage fool you. They are an entirely different species. A field guide to identifying a journalist can be found at
http://spj.org/ethicscode.asp

A few characteristics you can use to identify journalists in the wild:

Journalists should:
– Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.
– Gather, update and correct information throughout the life of a news story.
– Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
– Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting.
– Label advocacy and commentary.
– Never deliberately distort facts or context, including visual information. Clearly label illustrations and re-enactments.
– Explain ethical choices and processes to audiences. Encourage a civil dialogue with the public about journalistic practices, coverage and news content.
– Respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness.
– Acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently. Explain corrections and clarifications carefully and clearly.
– Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations.
– Abide by the same high standards they expect of others.
It's likely what you are observed instead of being journalists are actually paid pundits. It's easy to mistake them for true journalists because they do sound a lot like them and they frequently take up residence in the habitats where journalists used to be found. Unfortunately journalists are almost extinct in the big media environment where they were once abundant. If you happen to see a journalist today it's most likely to be a free range journalist in a new habitat on the internet. Hopefully these free range journalists can survive but the journalist species is definitely endangered.

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