The Associated Press Stylebook is pretty much the media Bible, adhered to by reporters and editors from small-town weeklies to the big major dailies, and copywriters for broadcast media.
It’s pretty easy to tell a “citizen journalist” from a veteran news hack; that is, someone with a career who knows AP style reflexively, as opposed to somebody who thinks he/she is a writer. Crusty old scribes (me included) keep an AP Stylebook at their desks just to follow the guidelines which make newswriting understandable, uniform and — in theory, anyway — unbiased. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Almost two years ago, the AP added this note to the Stylebook and circulated it on social media: “The preferred term for a rifle that fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled and automatically reloads for a subsequent shot, is a semi-automatic rifle. An automatic rifle continuously fires rounds if the trigger is depressed and until its ammunition is exhausted.
“Avoid assault rifle and assault weapon,” the style tip continued, “which are highly politicized terms that generally refer to AR- or AK-style rifles designed for the civilian market, but convey little meaning about the actual functions of the weapon.”
Alas, the establishment media (i.e., “mainstream press”) either didn’t get the memo or, more likely, just stubbornly ignored it. My colleagues in the press can be a disappointing lot, and on this issue, disappointment becomes disgust every time there is a headline about an “assault weapons” ban or “assault rifle” used in a crime.
Way back on July 14, 2022, National Review’s Isaac Schorr did a splendid bit of reporting when he wrote, “The AP’s guidance, highlighted in a tweet on Wednesday, marked a rare ruling that pleased political conservatives. Previous guidance on gender issues and urban violence had been criticized for accepting progressive premises.”
All of this translates to media bias, and when it comes to firearms, it’s an allegation with plenty of incriminating evidence. Reporters make mistakes about firearms frequently, and copy editors don’t catch those errors because they don’t know anything about guns, either. When was the last time a reporter in the White House pressroom challenged a spokesperson, “Do you know the percentage of homicides committed annually with rifles of any kind?” (FYI, it’s between 2% and 4%.) In the unlikely event the spokesperson knows the answer, the follow-up question would necessarily be: “So, why do you guys want to ban a whole class of firearms that aren’t involved in even 5% of murders in this country?”
Seven years ago, Forbes published a report about one news hack who shared this observation: “Every major newspaper ought to have someone on staff who understands firearms and the people who own them. A reporter who understands guns could put gun-control proponents, and especially any grand-standing politician, on the spot; make them justify what they’re after by hitting them with questions based on statistical facts, rather than emotion.”
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