Civil Conversations about Guns Die in Darkness

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In late May, just before Gun Curious was published, I sat for an interview with a friend who is an award-winning reporter for our local public radio station, WFDD. This NPR affiliate is a broadcast service of my employer, Wake Forest University (WFDD stands for “Wake Forest Demon Deacons”), and their offices are on campus a short walk from mine.

When I arrived, I thought it was going to be a quick 15- or 20-minute chat about my book in advance of its publication. As it turns out, we spoke for over two hours on the record. It was a great conversation in no small part because my friend is an open-minded gun skeptic. This made him a perfect interlocutor with whom to discuss the complex reality of guns and gun violence in America.

I was ecstatic because we were able to model exactly the kinds of civil conversations we need to be having right now in this politically polarized moment where guns are a wedge issue.

My friend’s plan was to edit the conversation into a couple of shorter stories to run on air and a longer segment to post to the station’s website. As June turned into July and the stories never ran, I didn’t think much of it because I was beyond the immediate launch of Gun Curious and enjoying time with my family in California. When I returned to North Carolina in August, I ran into my friend and he broke the bad news to me. He had edited our conversation down into three stories and his superiors at WFDD declined to run any of them, effectively spiking the conversation.

I reached out to the station’s Content Director and News Director asking for permission to receive and post the stories on my own social media. The Content Director declined. I then asked to meet with him to get a fuller understanding of the specific reasons the story was pulled. He declined, writing in an email: “I will not get into a back-and-forth about our editorial decisions. Ultimately, the Interim News Director and I as Content Director have the final say on what story pitches make it to air and what story pitches do not. This one did not make it to air. It is not about the topic. It is not about [name redacted] ability as a reporter. The story did not meet the needs of the moment and it was pulled.”

I find myself alternating between sadness and anger at this editorial decision. I feel sad knowing individuals who hold the positions of Content Director and New Director at a public radio station that operates under the auspices of a university cannot see a civil conversation about guns as “meeting the needs of the moment.”

I feel angry because the Content Director’s response to me contained the dubious assertion that his killing the story “is not about the topic.” How could it simultaneously not meet “the needs of the moment” and not be “about the topic”? How are the needs of the moment not defined by topics?

And how can he not see that civil conversations about guns are exactly what the public needs at this moment?

In the end, I see clear parallels between my local public radio station’s management and the reviewer of my proposal for Gun Curious who maintained my views on guns are “repressible.” 

Ideological gatekeeping by liberal cultured despisers of guns: mission accomplished.

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