Conservative Commentators Rap Mainstream Media’s Gun Control Coverage

Conservative commentators are going after mainstream media outlets for what they view as biased coverage of the gun control vote this week.

Some media outlets lashed out strongly at Congress — mostly Republicans — for rejecting an amendment on expanded background checks, which essentially doomed the overall gun control bill.

The New York Daily News published photographs of the 46 senators who voted against the background check provision with their phone numbers, suggesting that readers call them to register dissatisfaction. The paper had run a series of page-one stories going after legislators who oppose more gun control.

”It’s clearly biased and unmistakably ideological. These outlets can do what they want, but nobody should kid themselves about what they’re doing,” New York Post columnist John Podhoretz told Politico.

Bill Kristol, editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard, told the news service: “I guess the liberal media get annoyed when Senators listen to their constituents and think for themselves, rather than doing the media’s bidding.”

Gun control supporters who favored the background check amendment have said polls indicate that 90 percent of the public supports the idea of expanding checks to gun show and online sales.

“First of all, 90 percent of people saying they favor background checks is not the same thing as saying they favor Manchin-Toomey [the amendment],” Podhoretz said.

“But more importantly, look back at the provisions of the [Republican] Contract with America in 1994. Every single one of those provisions had 70 percent support in public surveys. I don’t remember the media taking up those provisions because they represented the will of the people.”