CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has received a lot of criticism from both inside and outside the newsroom for her efforts to revamp the way the network covers the news. She's correctly pointed out that CBS was “not producing a product that enough people want”, but I have to say that so far under her leadership, the network's coverage of 2A issues still has a long way to go before 2A advocates will be satisfied.
A recent report from CBS's Chicago affiliate, for example, largely reads like a press release from gun control advocates instead of a straight news story. The outlet covered the RIFL Act, a piece of legislation that, if enacted, would force gun manufacturers to pay millions of dollars a year in order to sell their products in the state.
The headline is neutral enough: Chicago doctor on a mission to make gun manufacturers help pay costs of gun violence. It's the framing of the bill that's the problem.
Organizers said the RIFL Act would make Illinois the first state to hold gun manufacturers financially responsible for violence incurred by their weapons. This also includes resources for survivors and community violence intervention.
UChicago Medicine Surgeon Dr. Anthony Douglas has been pushing for the RIFL Act since January of last year.
"I was exhausted with calling time of death on people who look like me," he said. "I've called the time of death on more people than I can remember."
It was in the emergency room at UChicago Medicine, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when it happened. Violence was spiking, and Douglas was face to face with Chicago's gun violence victims in their final moments.
"There's nothing that really prepares you mentally, emotionally for when 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-, 16-, 24-, 60-year-olds look you in the eyes and ask you are they going to die," he said. "Those things stick with you.. You know, you don't forget being soaked in other people's blood at the end of the night."
So, he began to sketch out an idea where gun makers whose products are involved in an accident or homicide pay into a state fund to cover some of the costs taxpayers and victims' families currently pick up.
"Medical care, law enforcement, judicial costs, funeral and burial expenses," Douglas said. "This industry socializes the public costs but privatizes the profits."
Illinois would be the first state to force gun manufacturers to pay for the criminal misuse of their products, because it's an absolutely bonkers idea. Why not demand companies that produce alcoholic beverages pay for the cost of drunk driving accidents, liver transplants, and rehab centers? Maybe car makers should have to pay for every accident involving one of their vehicles? And what about those violent crimes where guns aren't used? Should knife-makers have to pay into a fund in order to sell their products in the state?
We've written about the inherent flaws in the RIFL Act before, but CBS Chicago's coverage of the bill barely mentions the opposition to the bill or the effects it would have on the right to keep and bear arms in the state.
Opponents of the RIFL Act, including the NRA, have argued it's unfair to make manufacturers pay, especially in cases where firearms are legally purchased and then illegally sold and used for crimes.
It would also mean a likely jump in gun prices, which might be politically unpopular.
That's it. Not even an actual quote from a gun maker, gun store owner, Second Amendment advocate, or lawmaker opposed to the RIFL Act. Instead, the news outlet quickly pivoted back to supporters of the legislation.
This isn't a one-off for CBS. After a mass shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana earlier this year committed by a convicted felon who allegedly stole the gun he used to kill eight children, seven of them his own offspring, CBS News ran another incredibly biased story promoting multiple gun control activists who blamed Louisiana's "lax" gun laws for the murders, without offering any kind of opposing view at all.
If Weiss really wants to shake things up at CBS News, she should put an end to this kind of anti-gun activism masquerading as journalism. Hiring some reporters and editors who aren't completely clueless about gun issues would help, but a directive that mandates stories about gun control feature both sides of the debate would be useful as well. I do believe that Weiss wants to take CBS News in a new direction, but when it comes to gun control and the Second Amendment, the network is offering little more than the same old anti-gun bias at the moment.
