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| Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies listing the five stages of grief among officials after another school shooting: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance -- with a payoff from the gun lobby. |
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| Editorial cartoonist Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows how from their fortresses, President Trump, Republicans in Congress and conservatives call for more -- not fewer -- guns. |
STUDENTS TAKE OVER ROLE
OF CALLING FOR REFORM
-- HACKENSACK, N.J.
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
Surely, we are witnessing one of the darkest chapters in the history of American journalism.
Once, in the not too distant past, reporters saw their role as challenging authority, exposing wrongdoing and calling for reform.
Now, our news media have ceded that responsibility when it comes to gun control to high school students who survived the Parkland shootings, which were nothing less than 17 premeditated murders.
During "listening sessions" at the White House, not a single reporter confronted President Trump, and asked him how he could allow the murders of 17 innocent students and staff members in a Florida high school.
Instead, they scribbled furiously, and strained to capture photos and videos of his ridiculous proposal to arm teachers and other school staff.
Reporters have been reduced to the role of stenographers and videographers.
One Colorado teacher who showed a TV reporter the loaded pistol he carries in his classroom even was quoted by the CBS Evening News as saying he would be justified missing a gunman and killing an innocent student, if he could stop the death of more kids.
Confronting Rubio
At a forum in Florida, angry students and parents confronted Sen. Marco Rubio and a top representative of the National Rifle Association -- "demanding that politicians and lobbyists support stricter gun-control measures," the New York Post reported.
Promoting AR-15
Today, Columnist Mike Kelly uses the front page of The Record of Woodland Park to promote the semi-automatic AR-15 -- used in the Parkland murders -- as "deadly" because it is so "easy to fire [and] load," and as "the most popular rifle in America" (1A).
The irresponsible columnist at my local daily newspaper also went to a firing range near his office to shoot an "AR-15-style rifle."
He uses the first two paragraphs of his column to describe in detail how easy it was to pick up the deadly weapon, load it and squeeze the trigger time and again -- essentially recounting how Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz killed student after student on Feb. 14.
His column today is "shameful" and "idiotic" -- the words Kelly himself used on the Opinion section front just a week ago to describe how we don't confiscate the weapons of people like Cruz when "they are behaving strangely."
Kelly definitely is one columnist who is "behaving strangely."
Surely, we are witnessing one of the darkest chapters in the history of American journalism.
Once, in the not too distant past, reporters saw their role as challenging authority, exposing wrongdoing and calling for reform.
Now, our news media have ceded that responsibility when it comes to gun control to high school students who survived the Parkland shootings, which were nothing less than 17 premeditated murders.
During "listening sessions" at the White House, not a single reporter confronted President Trump, and asked him how he could allow the murders of 17 innocent students and staff members in a Florida high school.
Instead, they scribbled furiously, and strained to capture photos and videos of his ridiculous proposal to arm teachers and other school staff.
Reporters have been reduced to the role of stenographers and videographers.
One Colorado teacher who showed a TV reporter the loaded pistol he carries in his classroom even was quoted by the CBS Evening News as saying he would be justified missing a gunman and killing an innocent student, if he could stop the death of more kids.
Confronting Rubio
At a forum in Florida, angry students and parents confronted Sen. Marco Rubio and a top representative of the National Rifle Association -- "demanding that politicians and lobbyists support stricter gun-control measures," the New York Post reported.
Promoting AR-15
Today, Columnist Mike Kelly uses the front page of The Record of Woodland Park to promote the semi-automatic AR-15 -- used in the Parkland murders -- as "deadly" because it is so "easy to fire [and] load," and as "the most popular rifle in America" (1A).
The irresponsible columnist at my local daily newspaper also went to a firing range near his office to shoot an "AR-15-style rifle."
He uses the first two paragraphs of his column to describe in detail how easy it was to pick up the deadly weapon, load it and squeeze the trigger time and again -- essentially recounting how Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz killed student after student on Feb. 14.
His column today is "shameful" and "idiotic" -- the words Kelly himself used on the Opinion section front just a week ago to describe how we don't confiscate the weapons of people like Cruz when "they are behaving strangely."
Kelly definitely is one columnist who is "behaving strangely."
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| Cartoonist Dave Granlund exploring what he calls the National Rifle Association's "plan for school security." |
'Everybody is exhausted'
Several pages of The Record today explore "the chaos of life and its collision with technology [social media] and tragedy..." (1A, 6A, 7A and Better Living front).
"More of us [are] feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun... We are exhausted," Staff Writer Jim Beckerman reports.
He blames everything from wildfires in California, rising tensions with North Korea, "the non-stop barrage of presidential tweets," mass shootings, red-blue state political divisions and three of the worst hurricanes on record.
The headlines on the Better Living front:
The Trump effect
Politics may actually be stressing you out
Of course, The Record and other news media are guilty of causing a lot of this stress by focusing on nothing but "politics," and the partisan divide in Trenton and Washington.
Issues and what is good for the people of New Jersey and the nation rarely appear in news stories and opinion columns.
Veteran Trenton reporter Charles Stile does little else but write about politics -- his tedious, boring column is called "Political Stile," and The Record often runs his garbage on the front page.
On Wednesday, The Record reported on Page 1 that Governor Murphy praised students staging gun control protests across the country, and vowed "once again to sign a package of gun-control legislation that was blocked" by his predecessor, Chris Christie.
But the very next day, Stile's ridiculous front-page column carried this headline:
"Murphy cautious
after Parkland shooting"
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