From the November 30 edition of NRATV’s Relentless:
NRATV host: Press coverage of school shootings contributes to “the wussification of America”
Grant Stinchfield: “It’s not just school shootings, it’s everything. Kids are afraid of everything today”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
DANA LOESCH (NRATV HOST): Whenever you have such a saturation of mass casualty incidents, school shootings particularly, you always have these copy cats. And they cited that these individuals, they would always mention Columbine as a very messed up, bizarre kind of point of inspiration for the lack of a better way to put it. And then the coverage does sort of present the idea that this is happening constantly, which instills a fear in families all across America. And people -- they’re fearful. And it makes kids afraid, which, what a terrifying environment to create for young people. Your thoughts on this?
GRANT STINCHFIELD (NRATV HOST): All right, so Dana let’s break it down step-by-step. One is, that The Washington Post points out, and I’m amazed that this contributor to The Washington Post actually pointed this out, that the chances of your kid being killed in a school shooting are slim to none. I mean it just doesn’t happen all that often. But with that said, even though the chances of a school shooting happening at your child’s school is slim to zero, the chance of another school shooting happening again is very high. We will see it. The problem with the mainstream media is that they live off of sensationalism and they live off of emotion. I blame the mainstream media in many respects for it, but I also blame the American public for it as well because the American public eats it up. So as much as people say well I don’t want to see bad news on TV at night, when you put good news on TV -- and news stations have tried this experiment before, I worked in mainstream media for over 20 years -- they've tried putting good news on. People don’t want to watch, they tune it out. So the American public can dictate, in some respects, what the media covers just simply by turning the channel when it’s something they don’t want to see. But in the end, when it comes to school shootings, you’ve got liberals inside the media that by and large hate guns. Every time they can publicize a school shooting, not only does it play into what the public wants to see as far as the sensationalism and the emotions, but then they can also encourage that war against gun ownership and the anti-gun climate that we’re seeing today all played out any time this happens. So it makes everybody scared. But it’s the wussification of America. It’s not just school shootings, it’s everything. Kids are afraid of everything today.Where, Dana, you and I talked about empowering people to take responsibility for their own safety and security. People call us paranoid. That’s not being paranoid, that’s so we can go out in the public and not be fearful.
Related:
Washington Post: How did America end up raising Generation Paranoia?
Previously: