The state of the news media in this country is…well, it’s not good. We all know this.

After all, we simply cannot trust what the media tells us any more. They told us Hunter Biden’s laptop was a hoax, for example, only it turned out to be very real. They refused to critically examine any statement made about the coronavirus, only to find out that the government lied to us early during the pandemic when they said masks weren’t effective at preventing the spread.

We just don’t have a lot of reason to trust them.

In Philadelphia, though, anti-gun activists are trying to rally the media to help them out. However, the NSSF is calling them out.

The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting announced it will host a workshop in September with local television news journalists, along with “experts from impacted communities, researchers, educators and other thought leaders,” to explore if news reporting can help solve the out-of-control crime problem in the City of Brotherly Love.

By crime, they mean “gun violence.” By explore, they mean “co-opt.” By solve, they mean “push a gun control narrative.”

News media should be at the table with The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. The question they should be asking is why are elected politicians failing to enforce laws and locking up criminals preying on the innocent.

Crime is out of control in Philadelphia. No one can argue that. The debate is how to solve it. Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner have proven they are inept or unwilling to solve the crisis. They would rather target lawful gun owners and the firearm industry instead of prosecuting criminals and locking them up.  Apparently, it’s easier to scapegoat than to actually do something to help the neighborhoods that are being victimized by criminals.

Oh, but that’s not all they’re doing. It seems they’re also using taxpayer money to voice a political position and make it look like a grassroots effort, though they’ve got help in the astroturf department:

The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting is a convenient tool to do this. They’re funded, in part, by the Philadelphia Office of Violence Prevention. That’s taxpayer dollars at work to push a political antigun narrative. They’ve also got convenient partners that press the narrative for more gun control, including The Trace, the mouthpiece for billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety gun control group. There’s also The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. That’s part of the Bloomberg School and funded by… you know.

The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting focuses on partnering “credible messengers” with media to tell their stories. Victims of criminal violence deserve to be heard. They also deserve to hear what their elected officials are going to do to solve the crime crisis.

And let’s understand, the primary reason they want victim stories to be heard is to elicit an emotional response. Gun control is easier to sell to people who are governed by emotion, rather than cool logic.

For example, logical people will recognize that criminals skirt every gun control law already in existence in obtaining firearms as it is and that new laws won’t actually change that.

So, they want folks emotional. The stories of lives torn about by violence will do that.

Notice how these lives are never about the gangbanger who was shot during a turf war or someone else doing something criminal–which accounts for a lot of homicides, for the record–but are good, sweet, angelic folks who were victimized for no reason.

And yes, they’re always people who got shot.

It’s never the stories of the person who was stabbed to death or the woman who was raped and had no means to resist.

No, these stories aren’t about victims being heard, but about certain victims being used to advance the anti-gun narrative.

The media, however, doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter to them because it’s all about pushing that narrative.

But the NSSF is right, what the media should be doing is questioning the failed policies of elected leaders. They should be looking at just why the anti-gun policies continually fail to produce the results being promised and do so critically without serving as a mouthpiece for those same failing elected officials.

Unfortunately, that’s work. It’s much easier to write stories that are practically dropped in your lap rather than having to look for them.