We all know American media is a fickle beast, but a few charts out of Politico today show that fickleness bordering on the worst of attention deficit disorder — it may even cross into a total lack of true substance.
From Dylan Byers of Politico:
This time was supposed to be different. "It is hard to believe this will not be a watershed moment when we start to talk about, deal with and even perhaps legislate on guns,"ABC News's Z. Byron Wolf wrote. He was one among many in the media who believed the momentum for gun control legislation was strong enough to turn the tide on a familiar pattern.
No, Santa Claus did not bring 'Gun Control' to America this Christmas. In fact, according to Byers, he may even have contributed to its submergence back into the political and media subconscious.
"Blame it on the fiscal cliff, blame it on Christmas, blame it on our ability to forget," writes Byers, "but the national discussion about gun control has once again ebbed."
The bottom line is: If the issue were really one that media and politicians care about, no holiday or turn-of-the-year celebration would have torn it out of the public eye.
Check out the chart below, it illustrates the mentions of "gun control" via the media search tool Nexis. Oddly enough, the big drop occurred while everyone was busy opening gifts:
Byers also posted a chart out of Bloomberg which showed the use of the phrase on twitter falling off the map.
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