If it bleeds it leads

There is a phrase I have heard from people in the news business: “If it bleeds it leads.” The traffic on this site over the last week illustrates why:

Typically I get about 200 visits a day with the weekends being a little bit lighter. On Sunday (and here) and Monday (and here) Lyle and I reported about the nut case that shot up the Latah County Dispatch center and killed three people before belatedly removing himself from the gene pool.

Yes, there is media bias about gun control but part of that tendency is fed because of readership/money. If I had reported the nut case had shot at the dispatch center, the police showed up and arrested him without incident there probably wouldn’t have been a blip. If it had been a private citizen that had run him over with a car while he was reloading it would have been only a minor blip. But three innocent people were killed and two others were wounded so there was almost six times the normal traffic.

In this “war” we are fighting against the anti-gun bigots there are natural advantages and disadvantages for both sides. The bigots have the advantage of better media coverage for their viewpoint and much higher emotional content. We have the advantages of the facts, the numbers of dedicated activists, and our social networks. There are other advantages too, but that is a topic for another post.

Share