The Failing American News Media

Jessie Singer
ACCIDENT
Published in
2 min readApr 12, 2017

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Reporting live from a firearm discharge at the National Rifle Association.

On Friday, April 7, the National Rifle Association published a short online video.

“To every dishonest member of the failing American news media, let me explain why you’ve never been less trusted, less credible, or less respected,” says Wayne Lapierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association.

Lapierre speaks directly to the camera, “For decades, you’ve ignored calls from millions of guns owners to tell the truth. All you had to do was just get the facts right, about our guns, and our freedom.”

Also on Friday, April 7, at the headquarters of the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Virginia, a 46-year-old employee of the National Rifle Association shot himself in the leg.

The employee was participating in a firearms training, according to a number of American news media outlets including The Washington Post, Fox News, Time Magazine, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, CBS, USA Today, NBC, The New York Daily News, and U.S. News and World Report.

“As he holstered his pistol,” the Fairfax County Police Department said in a statement, “the firearm was accidentally discharged.”

In 2015, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne Lapierre got paid $5,110,985 for this shit. Police officers in Fairfax County were less well compensated.

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Jessie Singer
ACCIDENT

Journalist and Author of “There Are No Accidents” out now from Simon & Schuster. Read me in The Atlantic, WaPo, The Guardian, New York Magazine, and elsewhere.