Commentary By Larry S. Moore

A number of outdoor columnists are reporting on the recently completed deer gun season in Ohio. Many of those columnists end their stories with a recap of the hunting fatalities and incidents in Ohio. It seems like lots of columnist feel obligated to include the statistics in their reports. As an outdoor writer, I hate ending my columns on a negative note. Why end on a negative? I don't understand that. I am safer deer hunting than in any big city in Ohio.

Additionally, they report the incident but never an analysis of the situation, background info, or what laws of nature/God; gun handling safety; and wildlife regulations were broken in the process.

A case in point is the 12 year-old boy in Vinton County that was shot by older brother. With apologies to Paul Harvey, here is the rest of the story...

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/article2872.html

Well of course the negative is emphasized, thats what sells news. If your news reports consisted of nothing but happy thoughts news organizations would be out of work.

Wrecks, death, hurricanes, tornados, sinking ships, natural disasters, the latest politician's indescretions and so on seem to power the news.

Where I live here in Idaho lost or shot hunters make up most of the hunting news headlines. Our local once a week paper does have a hunting and fishing report, usually about 4 inchs of type on a back page.

If your "in the news writing business" you know exactly what I'm talking about. Good things do make the news, but death and deprivation sell the papers.

[QUOTE=buckeye#1]Commentary By Larry S. Moore

A number of outdoor columnists are reporting on the recently completed deer gun season in Ohio. Many of those columnists end their stories with a recap of the hunting fatalities and incidents in Ohio. It seems like lots of columnist feel obligated to include the statistics in their reports. As an outdoor writer, I hate ending my columns on a negative note. Why end on a negative? I don't understand that. I am safer deer hunting than in any big city in Ohio.

Additionally, they report the incident but never an analysis of the situation, background info, or what laws of nature/God; gun handling safety; and wildlife regulations were broken in the process.

A case in point is the 12 year-old boy in Vinton County that was shot by older brother. With apologies to Paul Harvey, here is the rest of the story.../QUOTE]

Well of course the negative is emphasized, thats what sells news. If your news reports consisted of nothing but happy thoughts news organizations would be out of work.

Wrecks, death, hurricanes, tornados, sinking ships, natural disasters, the latest politician's indescretions and so on seem to power the news.

Where I live here in Idaho lost or shot hunters make up most of the hunting news headlines. Our local once a week paper does have a hunting and fishing report, usually about 4 inchs of type on a back page.

If your "in the news writing business" you know exactly what I'm talking about. Good things do make the news, but death and deprivation sell the papers.


We had three hunting related shootings this year, with at least 2 being fatal. Between that and the law changes that have reduced the number of interested hunters, the number of 'legal' deer, and thus the number of deer taken, I'm not sure VT has ANY good news about hunting reported.

jonas

Wasn't it the Eagles who wrote a song about this very subject?

Bad news, "dirty laundry" sells.

Looking at the linked article, we have a teachable moment here. As in, your own kids or those you know could get lucky and come home that night none the worse for wear. Or they could get really lucky and both come home dragging a deer. But what happened was that they didn't use their heads, didn't follow the rules and one of the kids isn't coming home. So some bad news serves a purpose to society around us.

Is it fun to see? No. Does it make us think about the sport we all love and want to pass on? Yes.

I wish that we never had this sort of thing happen. I can't call it an accident, because it wasn't. It is a tragedy, plain and simple. We should learn from it. Both kids deserve at least that.

In journalism thre is a premise which dictates what is reported. This is usually expressed within the industry as: "If it bleeds, it leads."

People are quite voyueristic, just drive by an accident, traffic stop, or anything else and see how all the traffic slows down to gawk. People want to see the gory, so they can exclaim how terrible it is! Ask anyone in law enforcement and they will tell you!