"Just another day in America."
That was how the BBC opened its report on the mass shooting in San Bernardino. Only days earlier, Robert Dear had opened fire on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, killing three people. The San Bernardino shooting wasn't even the only one that day.
"Just another day" just about sums it up for how the media both inside and outside of the U.S. reacted to the news: Another day, another shooting to cover.
Mass shootings have become so common -- the U.S. is now averaging more than one per day in 2015 -- that newsrooms have grown accustomed to covering them.
[seealso slug=http://sale-online.click/2015/12/03/gun-control-politics-limits/%5D%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3EJournalists did little to hide how the constant parade of mass shootings had led them fall into a macabre routine.
I just had to leave a meeting about mass shootings because I needed to cover a mass shooting. #America— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) December 2, 2015
It is heartbreaking to know that newsrooms across America have developed finely tuned systems for covering mass slaughter by firearms.— Michael Shane (@michaelbshane) December 2, 2015
Slade Sohmer, editorial director at Mic, said that his company has no defined way it covers mass shootings. It just doesn't need one.
"Is there something that is written on paper? There's not. Is there such muscle memory from the fact that we seem to do this once a week? Absolutely," he said.
As far as criticism of the media's handling of gun violence, some journalists weren't having it. Clara Jeffrey, editor in chief of Mother Jones, had little patience for an anti-gun activist who said that the magazine had been helping the National Rifle Association in how it compiled its database of mass shootings.
12/ But do not fucking call me or the people in my newsroom who've been toiling away on this issue for 3 years stooges of NRA.— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) December 3, 2015
Cameron Barr, national editor of the Washington Post, noted that his publication also has developed an unwritten way of covering these events.
It's important that it stay unwritten, he added. Reporters are now covering more of these stories than ever before, so it's important not to limit them.
"Even though we all accept, particularly in recent weeks and months that there has been an acceleration, we have been trying to not let the repetition wear us down," he said. "You don't want to be going through the motions. You want to find the story every time."
Someone just sent an internal email to our reporters about stories on this shooting with the phrase "You know the drill" in it. Sadly true.— NickBaumann (@NickBaumann) December 2, 2015
Part of the frustration seems to stem from the dim-to-nonexistent prospects for any legislation to address how the shooters get their hands on guns, meaning the shootings are unlikely to let up.
President Barack Obama has repeatedly called for reforms in the wake of mass shootings, as he did again on Wednesday. Few expect it to make much of a difference.
A bill to address gun purchases by people that are suspected terrorists did make it to a vote in the Senate on Thursday. It lost.
Senate falls short to prohibit those on terrorism watch list from purchasing guns/explosives. Needed 60 to consider amdt. Only got 45 yeas.— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 3, 2015
The impasse remains despite broad support among U.S. voters of both parties for expanded background checks.
Gun sales, meanwhile, appear to be as strong as ever. A record 185,345 background requests for gun purchases were processed on Black Friday.
Not sure what more we can say. We’ve gotten so used to these shootings. We know the routine. Maybe that’s the saddest part - it’s routine— Evan Barnes (@evan_b) December 2, 2015