Appleseed Anti-government???

[Beiruty]

It is good opportunity to better your skills, but why label Appleseed Project as anti-government? I want to be a better shooter no more no less. Shooting 8" steel plate at 400 yard is fun and challenging. Where is the help?

http://www.wfaa.com/news/texas-news/App ... 97258.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[baldeagle]

I read the article but failed to find it labeling the movement anti government. I also watched the video and failed to find it there as well. Perhaps you can help me find it?

[Beiruty]

Why the reference to watch dog that declared the project not an extremist organization but possible recruiting for the militia? Maybe the label was implicit.

[baldeagle]

Why the reference to watch dog that declared the project not an extremist organization but possible recruiting for the militia? Maybe the label was implicit.

I would word it differently. Rather than reporting that Project Appleseed is possibly recruiting for the militia, they reported that the Anti-Defamation League is concerned that militias might find recruits among "graduates" of the project. Even if that is a concern of the ADL, it certainly isn't an implication that the project is actively (or even secretly) recruiting. In fact the article goes to pains to point out that the project explicitly does not take a political position and it's leader is heard in the video and quoted in the article stating that anyone who is looking for revolution will not find it there.

If you drew the conclusion that the article is labeling the project anti-government, then perhaps that's a reflection of your personal biases?

[G.A. Heath]

While the article doesn't say that appleseed is anti-government they do make an effort to indirectly connect it to such groups. I would say this article could influence people to think that appleseed is promoting anti-government activities and such. Overall this article is just a hair left of center, to be unbiased they would need to completely drop the references to militias with the exception of stating that appleseed is not one. Primarily they would need to drop the line about appleseed serving as a potential recruitment tool for militias, and the part about the Anti-Defamation League monitoring appleseed. Additionally changing the part about one third of the way into the video would help move it back towards neutral as the whole training to shoot government troops, although redcoats, would have to be dropped. The good news is that they don't get someone with LE credentials to start trash talking the project nor do they quote any kind of statistics from anti-gun groups. This article can be taken both ways, however I do believe it is a bit left of center.

[RiverCity.45]

[off topic]Thanks for mentioning this. It reminded me that I wanted to attend an Appleseed event, so I found one in my area in the upcoming month. I'll be registering with the hope I can convince my spouse and daughter to attend, too.[/off topic]

[Beiruty]

Yes, the reference to shooting government troops was red flag. maybe this was take away message implied therein.

[cheezit]

there one not far from dallas/ft worth comming up if all goes well Ill be going.

[baldeagle]

Yes, the reference to shooting government troops was red flag. maybe this was take away message implied therein.

I think that's a stretch. The reporter states "The men and women on the firing line are shooting to kill. Their target...." Then the instructor says, "This is called the redcoat target" and the reporter continues, ".....government soldiers".."but this is not a futuristic militia nightmare. It's an Appleseed project training weekend"...."and the targets are redcoats, British soldiers".

I think it's a stretch to say that the reporter is trying to imply that the Appleseed project is attempting to teach people how to shoot present day government troops. The story makes clear that the participants are shooting at redcoat targets representing British soldiers from the Revolutionary War and that the shooting is interspersed with stories about the Revolutionary War. One could make the same claims about a story on a Civil War reenactment.

There may be other things that one knows or thinks one knows about the project that influence one's perception of a slant to the story, but the story appears to be fairly neutral to me. The reporter never expresses an opinion about the project. She does introduce an opposing viewpoint in the interspersed comments of the ADL representative, but that's what reporters are trained to do - present "both" sides of a story. (Often there are quite a few more than just two - thus the reason for the quotes around both.)

[lrb111]

The ADL needs to meet with the JPFO.
It was about a month back when the Appleseed project was hit "militia" allegations. I was thinking they came from Janet Napolitano. So, they were "news".

[Hoi Polloi]

Yes, the reference to shooting government troops was red flag. maybe this was take away message implied therein.

I think that's a stretch. The reporter states "The men and women on the firing line are shooting to kill. Their target...." Then the instructor says, "This is called the redcoat target" and the reporter continues, ".....government soldiers".."but this is not a futuristic militia nightmare. It's an Appleseed project training weekend"...."and the targets are redcoats, British soldiers".

The TEA party movement equates itself strongly with those who were fighting the British and with the NRA and 2A. Based only on this paragraph you wrote as I haven't read the article, I would say anyone who was even slightly knowledgeable about current political symbolism would associate the TEA party with the above group as you described it, at the very least to wonder if there is an outright connection between the groups.

I don't see how anyone in our society would not make that connection as it is current politico-pop culture to know fighting Red Coats/overthrowing an overreaching government is equated with the TEA party's purpose and symbolisms. The reporter's re-phrasing the Red Coats and placing it in the context of any "government soldiers" and then calling that a nightmare would definitely be understood by the culture at large to refer to a certain segment of our population which would agree with and be interested in the project. By equating the Red Coats with the generic government soldiers, the implication is that these people might be training to do this again--and we all know who they see as the Red Coats today. It completely undermines what the Appleseed rep just said and by going after what he said, it makes what he said be replaced by the reporter's bias.

This is probably just one tiny part of the article, but it shows how two little words have such power and how journalists have a real responsibility to choose their words wisely.

[Pawpaw]

Journalist + responsibility

These days, that is a true oxymoron.

[RiverCity.45]

Journalist + responsibility

These days, that is a true oxymoron.

I agree. Way too much personal opinion/punditing being passed off as journalism. Journalists ought to be reporting the news, not opining about it.

[baldeagle]

Yes, the reference to shooting government troops was red flag. maybe this was take away message implied therein.

I think that's a stretch. The reporter states "The men and women on the firing line are shooting to kill. Their target...." Then the instructor says, "This is called the redcoat target" and the reporter continues, ".....government soldiers".."but this is not a futuristic militia nightmare. It's an Appleseed project training weekend"...."and the targets are redcoats, British soldiers".

The TEA party movement equates itself strongly with those who were fighting the British and with the NRA and 2A. Based only on this paragraph you wrote as I haven't read the article, I would say anyone who was even slightly knowledgeable about current political symbolism would associate the TEA party with the above group as you described it, at the very least to wonder if there is an outright connection between the groups.

I don't see how anyone in our society would not make that connection as it is current politico-pop culture to know fighting Red Coats/overthrowing an overreaching government is equated with the TEA party's purpose and symbolisms. The reporter's re-phrasing the Red Coats and placing it in the context of any "government soldiers" and then calling that a nightmare would definitely be understood by the culture at large to refer to a certain segment of our population which would agree with and be interested in the project. By equating the Red Coats with the generic government soldiers, the implication is that these people might be training to do this again--and we all know who they see as the Red Coats today. It completely undermines what the Appleseed rep just said and by going after what he said, it makes what he said be replaced by the reporter's bias.

This is probably just one tiny part of the article, but it shows how two little words have such power and how journalists have a real responsibility to choose their words wisely.

As someone who used to blog under the name Antimedia and has been extremely critical of the media in general, I am now placed in the uncomfortable position of defending a reporter.

Never let it be said that life doesn't get strange sometimes.

First, the reporter didn't use the word "any" with government soldiers. Second, it's a stretch to say that the reporter "rephrased" when immediately after that the reporter stated that they were shooting at Redcoats and used the word "not" referencing the "nightmare", thereby contrasting what the Appleseed project is doing with the "nightmare of a futuristic militia".

If you want to criticize the reporter for thinking that militias are nightmares, then do so. But don't, in the process, discard the entire article as biased when that has not been shown to be true.

It is the responsibility of readers, not reporters, to read an article for what is in it and not insert their own biases as well. While I am a vocal and strident critic of the media, I think it does a disservice to that criticism when the slightest nits are picked to make a point. (To be clear, I am not accusing you of picking nits. I'm referring to the overall tenor of the criticisms of this article.) Reporters are not gods that live on separate planes. They live among us and are humans just as we are. It is not a reporter's job to explain what they have written. It is the readers' job to become informed, understand the issues and discern the point of an article and its impact.

One of the greatest problems we have in our society is the lack of reading comprehension. Far too often people with an agenda amplify the slightest perception of a reporter's bias and vociferously criticize it. The average reader, when reading the criticism, will then dismiss it out of hand as over the top or making mountains out of molehills. The end result is not the one that the critic intended. In fact, it drives people away from the critic's position - the precise opposite of what was intended. The more this happens, the more likely it is that the critics' position will be completely ignored by people who are not invested in that particular issue and the more open the critic becomes to ridicule as well.

Even worse, the reporters will also dismiss the criticism. The more this happens, the more over the top the bias of an article must be before members of the media will even consider the criticism to have any validity. There are literally thousands of good reasons for criticizing reporting in America today. But if we jump on every word written or spoken by every reporter, those words will soon fall on deaf ears and we will have defeated ourselves, not the objects of our criticism.

[Beiruty]

On the positive side, where is the nearest long-range Appleseed event to DFW?