Muscatine

Re: Happy Joes - I was not the one who wrote that article (I actually do have other writers, just not enough of them, XD) I just edited the grammer in some places.

Sorry I haven't been replying - I'm transfering to the University of Iowa here in the fall and have been spending 90% of my free time hunting both a job up there and website design clients, while also trying to ensure my place in the honors program and to make sure all my credits are transferred the way I want. I haven't had any extra time to even check NL ^_^

BigBrother - Oh, and I'm pretty much independant from party, even though I've been an obama supporter. You see, I know even republicans that support Obama. To me, it's not about party, it's about ideas. If republicans stood behind spending more money on education or healthcare then I might stand behind them instead. Besides, I think I noted that I'm an obama supporter somewhere on my website - and I told people while campaigning door to door.

I'll be sure not to call people snipers who aren't snipers. But perhaps I should have clarified, these guys had those high-tech scopes, and they were wearing police uniforms. I wouldn't call some random guy with a rifle on the roof of a mall a sniper unless he was actually 'sniping'. (Oddly, the wikipedia article says "News sources will often use the term sniper incorrectly to refer to anyone shooting someone else with a rifle", so you're probably right in principle.)

Muscatine123 - As for 'showing no respect for Lee or his family', that's a ridiculous statement. As a news reporter I couldn't and shouldn't do anything more than report the facts in an unbiased manner. It was tragic for all the victims of the incident, but my objective in that article was to say "this is what happened," not to analyze it. If you decide not to read muscazine because you believe my reporting is not sensitive enough, I respect your decision, though I hope you would change your mind. As I mentioned, I reported his name only after the Journal did (which I incorrectly assumed meant "okay, his family must have been informed by now").

If you ever notice I don't reply to something in a timely manner, you can throw something at me on my contact form.

Your first mistake was to assume.  Get the facts first... his family wasn't notified until well after the incident had taken place.  Secondly you can write a piece and you can write it unbiasedly, but yours simply did not come across as a well written article.  No I don't like the journal, but I didn't find my self upset and angry after reading their article the day after the inciden.  I read yours a month later and was very upset with it.  You came across as fame hungry.  In your mind you had a really juicey piece of info. and just couldn't wait to get it out their.  You seemed more like a gossipy teenage girl than an educated reporter.  Of course this is all my opinion.

I sincerely appreciate your statement to use the term appropriately in the future.  Truly, I do.  Much damage has been done to civil rights, in this case the Second Amendment, by the media (yes, for all you liberals, the 2A is a civil right...That's why it's listed in a list of individual civil rights).  Some if this is because of bias, but really, I think most of it is caused by sheer ignorance.  Reporters get their gun education from movies and other news reporters instead of going hands-on, with quality instruction from people who know better.

With that in mind, I have to pick a couple nits with you: one having to do with guns, and the other having to do with credible reporting.  Were you not a proclaimed journalist, I wouldn't even bother, but since you are...

The first thing is your usage of the term "high-tech scopes."  I am curious what your shooting background and education is that allows you to make that distinction.  Also, what exactly makes a "high-tech scope" a high-tech scope?

The United States Army uses the M24 rifle with a 10x40 Leupold scope.  The United States Marine Corps uses the M40 rifle with a 10x40 Unertl scope.  The most commonly used sniper weapon utilized by law enforcement is the Remington 700P; the MPD uses the Remington 700P TWS which has a Leupold 3.5-10x variable power scope.  All of these rifles are based on the Remington 700 action, and most importantly to this discussion, all of them utilitze rather normal "low-tech" scopes.  It is true that these scopes have a couple features unique to them over a cheap hunting scope, but those features simply help the sniper range his target and adjust his point of impact much more finely than a hunting scope--and none of these features would be visually ascertainable without an up-close personal inspection.  A hunting scope and a scope used by a sniper are essentially the same.

So, I want to know what a "high-tech scope" is, why you think they were "high-tech," and what background you have to make that distinction.

The second nitpick is your usage of Wikipedia as a source.  In case you didn't know, anyone can write anything on Wikipedia.  I could get on your beloved Obama's Wiki page and type in that he's the only known black, Muslim member of the Nazi Party, but that wouldn't make either "fact" true, would it?  Similarly, you recently used Snopes as a source as well...

The point is, if you want to be credible as a journalist, you need to use credible sources.  Sources may disagree with each other from time to time, however your job in that event is to then present both sides of the story, without interjecting your personal bias, and allow the reader to make up their own minds.

With respect to the gun related stuff, I've made this offer before, and I'll make it to you now: if you ever want to go shooting, just start a thread with my screenname in the title and give me a holler here.  I own a wide variety of firearms, and I can borrow an even wider variety from civilian, law enforcement and military friends and co-workers.  I can also put you in touch with the guy who builds sniper rifles for several government agencies, such as the Secret Service and CIA, not to mention all branches of the military and hundreds of police agencies around the country.  Likewise, I can also put you in touch with several experienced LAPD snipers, as well as a Special Forces sniper or two.  I can also stand in as a source for future stories, in case you want to check some facts, get some info, etc.  Just let me know and I'll be happy to help...But just know, now that I've made this offer, you have no excuse to be gun ignorant in your stories from now on. 

Although I'm too tired to respond entirely, I think I'll try otherwise I'll forget in the morning. First, I have used a firearm before, on a couple different occasions, but only to shoot flying discs launched into the air (yeah, you know what I mean, I'm tired XD).

And I would love to see you go edit Obama's article like that. It would not stay for more than 30 seconds. But I didn't really refer to it as much of a source, it just happened to agree with you, of course you could have put it there it goes to show that at least the idea has been brought up before.

Remember anything I post here in not part of my journalism - it's part of my new mediaism. You wouldn't expect Ms. Meyer or anyone to post here for similar reasons, so I'm not holding myself up to reporter-level standards on these forums. Keep that in mind, I don't get paid enough *cough*nothing*cough* for that.