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This Parkland shooting survivor is being abused by the media

This Parkland shooting survivor is being abused by the media

The depraved national media has done a great disservice to David Hogg and to the American people.

Hogg, 17, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 dead and several more injured, has become something of a media celebrity. In the past two weeks, he has zoomed from one cable news program to another, demanding gun control legislation and attacking the National Rifle Association and its spokeswoman, Dana Loesch. Egged on by the news anchors who have given him a national spotlight as a political prop, Hogg is making statements that are increasingly misleading, highly emotional, and distressingly injurious.

Over the weekend, Hogg accused the NRA of owning politicians, decrying its activism on behalf of millions of law-abiding gun owners as "disgusting." He accused Loesch of "serving the gun manufacturers" on George Stephanopoulos' program on ABC. On CNN's "Reliable Sources," Hogg attributed false motives to Loesch, whom he erroneously referred to as the "CEO" of the NRA, arguing that she defends the Second Amendment so that gun manufacturers can "sell more guns." In the process, he claimed that Loesch doesn't care about NRA members and doesn't care about the police, assaults on her character that those who know Loesch find slanderous.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show Monday, Hogg demanded that Florida Gov. Rick Scott, R, be "held accountable" for the shooting while defending the inaction and ineptitude of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Hogg defended the sheriff's deputies who stood by as his classmates were slaughtered, arguing that Gov. Scott's administration is really to blame because "they're in charge of them."

“They should have been regulating them,” Hogg said. “I’m not going to allow them to pressure these people because at the end of the day it’s their fault. These elected officials are the boss of these sheriff personnel and just like the president is the boss of the FBI, Governor Rick Scott is essentially the boss of Scott Israel, the sheriff, and as such he should be held accountable."

“He can’t just blame this on the bureaucracy and expect to get re-elected,” he added.

Hogg's statements went unchallenged, despite his disjointed argument and the fact that Gov. Scott is term-limited and is not seeking re-election. As Charles Cooke points out:

Gov. Scott is blameless. The NRA is blameless. The blame lies with the shooter and with the complete and utter failure of law enforcement, from the federal level to Sheriff Scott Israel's department, to protect the children who died in the Parkland shooting from him. But the students who point that out only get airtime on Fox News, while the other cable networks promote Hogg as he continues to say things that are just plain wrong.

News anchors do not correct him. They don’t challenge his untruths. The media has turned Hogg into a spectacle, parading his activist statements in prime time and giving him a platform to spread immature and unserious attacks against those who stand against gun control. The media is wielding his tongue as a sword and his suffering as a shield to advance its narrative and deflect criticism. In doing so, they are teaching him his attacks are right and good and encouraging him.

So Hogg says new and more outrageous things with each TV appearance. And he becomes damaged with each new erroneous statement.

Hogg, a survivor of the worst kind of traumatic event, a boy who deserves our sympathy and support, is embarrassing himself. The adults ought to intervene. But instead of saving him from himself, the activist media lets him feed the American people disinformation as it continues its assault on the Second Amendment.

The media objective is, as it always has been, to put left-wing activism ahead of the truth. Hogg is being ill-used to this end.


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