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Can not agree more with you Gaz and IMO to go back to your previous comment, clubs' open days are a brilliant tool to "educate" the public & demystify our hobby.

Gaz wrote: I'm trying (on a very modest scale) to get fellow journalists along to range days, though it's an uphill task.

You might be on to something there Gaz - nowadays the media dominate and influence opinion at all levels, especially with the (not Japanese tongueout) general public.

I can't help thinking that we might get more benefit trying to educate journalists about shooting as we might see more positive (or at least more accurate) coverage of issues.


Saul.

We had to stop our open days as it generated too much interest in our club and joining, we couldn't handle the numbers that wanted to join, the waiting list just got longer and people got dissatisfied waiting.

As it is we have a steady stream of people wanting to join and our membership is healthy and growing.

We wouldn't invite journalists to our club as I don't deem them to be fit people to be around firearms.

dromia wrote: We wouldn't invite journalists to our club as I don't deem them to be fit people to be around firearms.

I'm curious -- we object to being demonised because of our sport; why would we want to demonise others simply because of their profession? How does it help us, or advance our argument that we are to be trusted?

I think Gaz has a good point; showing journalists what we are about is more likely to benefit us than harm us. Granted, Open days for a club with a healthy waiting list may well be self-defeating, but not all clubs are in that forunate position, and the possible benefits which might accrue from understanding of our sport in media circles might be worth the trouble of a special Open day now and then.

David.

DavidRees wrote:

dromia wrote: We wouldn't invite journalists to our club as I don't deem them to be fit people to be around firearms.

I'm curious -- we object to being demonised because of our sport; why would we want to demonise others simply because of their profession? How does it help us, or advance our argument that we are to be trusted?

I think Gaz has a good point; showing journalists what we are about is more likely to benefit us than harm us. Granted, Open days for a club with a healthy waiting list may well be self-defeating, but not all clubs are in that forunate position, and the possible benefits which might accrue from understanding of our sport in media circles might be worth the trouble of a special Open day now and then.

David.

Ah an optimist! Quick, someone catch him and bottle him!! :lol:

Journalists invited to a gun club out of the blue (i.e. there hasn't been a 'reason' to do it, like a relevant big shooting sports event, or even something like a mass shooting etc) the editor wouldn't waste the space publishing it. They only want sotries that are going to sell papers (understandably so) and a journo having a jolly nice time isn't going to cut it unless its like the Accrington Stanley Gazzette. Now if he can get some pictures of lots of people in military cammo (oo topical!), particularly 'scary' looking guns or someone caught on camera/tape saying something stupid/dodgy, now THEN he's got a story....

I suspect Dromia's comment was humorous

I personally hope that Gaz's laudable efforts will lead to less of his journalists referring to us a "gun fanatics" but show us in a more favourable light calling us what we simply are : "sport shooters"

No I am serious, I have had the misfortune to have had to engage with journalists all through my professional life, from national broadsheets, TV, radio and tabloids to local rags and I have never come across one that has written an article that had any bearing on the facts and didn't seek to sensationalise some negative aspect or seek to create arguments.

As I said from my extensive experience with them over decades I do not consider them fit people to be near firearms in their "professional" capacity as the likelihood of getting a positive spin is really not worth the effort when set against the high chance of it being negative.

I have no trust or respect for journalists whatsoever, their power in some quarters is indeed great but at the end of the day their only reason for being is profit for their masters.

They never let truth and integrity get in the way of a story to fed their shareholders greed.

Politicians and journalists deserve each other.

With that sort of miserable head-in-the-sand attitude no wonder you constantly attracted negative media coverage. I normally find such attitudes towards "the media", seen as some sort of evil blob, correlate heavily with trying and failing to prevent details of some personal or professional failing from being written about.


Going back to sensible on-topic discussion...

I know the NRA tried to get some interest from the newspapers (The Times, the Telegraph, Daily Mail) who sponsor(ed) the challenge cups which make up the Newspapers Aggregate in the Imperial Meeting. I even had a go myself, not that I really know any sports journalists well enough to call in a favour. None of them - either my contacts or the ones the NRA tried getting some interest from, afaik - were at all interested in covering the meeting, or even in the competitions still being shot in their papers' names ... though there is a lot of irritation in the industry generally about nationals' sports desks and their total lack of interest in anything that isn't football, rugby or cricket, so the problem is not unique to us by any means.

BASC are good at keeping their profile up but mainly because they can afford to employ a number of full-time media handlers and have a much broader membership base covering far more diverse activities (including actual jobs, livelihoods, etc). Target shooting simply doesn't have the money to take on a proper media/PR strategy.

[quote=Blackstuff]Journalists invited to a gun club out of the blue (i.e. there hasn't been a 'reason' to do it, like a relevant big shooting sports event, or even something like a mass shooting etc) the editor wouldn't waste the space publishing it. They only want sotries that are going to sell papers (understandably so) and a journo having a jolly nice time isn't going to cut it unless its like the Accrington Stanley Gazzette.[/quote]
You've got to start somewhere, and inviting the local rag along to your club's annual prizegiving would be a newsworthy enough reason. Local papers are always screaming for things to cover, and the beauty of getting them down the range is that most cub reporters are a) young and impressionable and b) will one day be grizzled old hacks running major newsdesks and setting the tone of coverage. Once you've educated the university-instilled left wing dogma out of them they're usually quite good if steered in the right direction.

But you are right, as well as having a play day for the journos you do need to have some newsworthy reason for them being there if you want the positive coverage.

I'm with Dromia. During my career, I was often involved with journalists, either through vehicle legislative committees or new product launches. The published results differed from the facts in every case.
My parents always had a newspaper delivered, so, when I got married and we moved into our first house, we did the same. After a couple of years, it occurred to me that there were only a few things that I really new a lot about: whenever these things were the subject of a news article, the facts were always wrong or mis-represented. I therefore had no reason to believe that the articles on other subjects contained the truth. I canceled the paper in 1968 and have not bought one since.
During the recent newspaper scandals---phone tapping etc and the prospect of legislation, I suggested to my MP that only one simple change in the law was required---it should be a criminal offence to print anything in a newspaper which is not true. I don't think that he thought that I was serious.
Fred

Gaz wrote:With that sort of miserable head-in-the-sand attitude no wonder you constantly attracted negative media coverage. I normally find such attitudes towards "the media", seen as some sort of evil blob, correlate heavily with trying and failing to prevent details of some personal or professional failing from being written about.

Oh gaz such a typically aggressive dismissive journalistic attitude and response.

I take as I find not only in my professional dealings with the media, which I used to work in BTW, but also from my current day today reading of the media. Just look at the state of journalism today that is surely evidence enough.

Your view and experiences might be different although you are bound to be partisan, certainly disagree with my view of the media but at least respect it as genuine and don't try and negate, belittle and undermine my experiences which you have no first hand knowledge of.