Here is the link.

Here is the email, response and my response to the author, RUBÉN ROSARIO.

My original email:
I assume you try to be the best reporter you can. You try to insure all the facts are correct and if you have any doubts, you double check before you send your story for printing. Further, if you are ignorant about a subject, you educate yourself to the best of your ability to insure, again, that the information you write about is factually correct. If you answered yes to all of these statements, then I can only guess that you either decided to take a shortcut this time or you have an agenda and why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

To what am I referencing you ask. Your grossly erroneous statement about the grandfathers AUTOMATIC Glock pistol. While Glock does make a select fire version of their famous pistol, the Glock 18, I can assure you that no police department issues this pistol to their officers. To understand the egregious nature of your mistake, to use the term automatic in reference to a semi-automatic gun is like saying day is night because there is cloud coverage.

I know most journalists are liberal creative types. However that is no excuse to lie outright. So which bucket do you fit; ignorant uneducated slacker who can learn, but has chosen not to, or outright liar. I can not wait to read your response.


Ruben's response:

Hey, Chris: This is my response as a Christian and as an employee of a newspaper. Thank you so much for writing. We value all opinions, from the most warped, insulting, and asinine to the most reasonable and rational. Yes, Glocks are semis, but Glocks are indeed a weapon tribal cops are allowed to carry up there. You must pat yourself on the back with your expert knowledge of firearms. That is indeed something to truly admire. Once again, thank you for reaching out. Have a nice life....


My reply to Ruben:

Thanks for writing. While I was not trying to be insulting, I was trying to make a point. Journalists want everyone else to be held to a high standard. Politicians, public servants, teachers are a few examples, but when anyone points out the shortcomings of reporters, they do not always react well. When you hold a powerful position as you do, it is incumbent upon you to be as educated as you can be about every subject you write and when you do not have all the facts, it is imperative that you research every detail to insure that what you write is as accurate as it can possibly be. When you do not do that, your credibility is shot. (No pun intended.) Further, when you reply to an honest inquiry, admittedly that should have been written with less attitude than mine, with a smart aleck reply that neither addresses my questions nor clarifies your position, you lose what little credibility you have left. This is the problem with today's journalists; they do not seem to care that they have no credibility, just so long as they can write and insure their agenda, whatever that happens to be this week, is read by the masses. Unfortunately, as I suspected, rather than take my letter as constructive criticism, you choose to write it off as, in your estimation, just some gun nut writing to insult you. That is too bad, but again shows a lack of character and an all too typical response from today's reporters. Rather than reflectively looking at a way to improve yourself and your writing, who chose to play the Christian card, which is not relevant to this conversation even though I am a Christian and a Priesthood member, and you completely missed my point. I was not challenging the fact that Police in Red Lake carry Glocks, I was challenging your characterization of them as automatic weapons. Please do not take this wrong, put do you know the difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic? I would be privileged to invite you to come shooting with me at a local range sometime. I would be happy to educate you about firearms to help dispel the myths and inaccuracies you may not be aware of. If you would like to take me up on my offer, please do not hesitate to call me on my cell phone at 612-408-8236. In any event, I truly hope that you reexamine your reaction to my inquiry and attempt to make any changes and correction necessary in order to provide your customers with the best possible information and knowledge you can.


To Ruben's credit, he did call my cell phone, but I was unable to take the call. I did call him back and invite him to call me to discuss my offer and or continue our email discussion. I will let you all know if I recieve any further response.

Please feel free to comment on any portion of our exchange. Thanks.

I will add the first critique. I should have expected a response to my email and written it accordingly. I have become a bit jaded with regard to journalists not responding and should not have assumed that Mr. Rosario would do the same. The adage of catching more flies with honey than with vinegar seems to apply in this situation. I hope Mr. Rosario takes me up on my offer to go to the range, but I would understand, after reading my original email, if he did not.

Jeeze! maybe next time you ought to think about posting the proposed letter here first.[get some input,see if you are off base]
You know,its better if I call my boss an asshole to you rather than to him.
Know what I mean?

I have been in disagreements with people who are seemingly hopeless in their anti gun stance,and before I get frustrated and prove them right in their own mind,I remember that this may be my chance to plant the seed of doubt in them that just maybe,a reasonable person may disagree with them,and not all gun people are like they thought.

I'm not sure why he thought his religious beliefs have something to do with the subject at hand, but were I to receive a message in the style of your first letter I would definitely feel insulted. I probably wouldn't get as defensive as he did, though.

Here's the thing. You were right and you knew you were right. What you forgot is that other folks don't automatically know that and need convincing. And of course, there is the old honey vs vinegar adage.

PS I still have no idea why anyone would want to catch flies...

A gentle touch can make an ally where an enemy could appear. I think your initial letter was too harsh. Yeah, the guy messed up his terminology & it is good to correct him, least the mistake be spoken into truth-hood by repitition. By that I mean something ugly like all semis being banned because they get called autos often enough and the people that ACTUALLY DO have an agenda dig up full auto images to scare people into thinking that is what semis do.

Be nice to the guy, win a friend from the otherside and you don't have as many people to fight tomorrow.

Respectfully, you blew it, big time.

First of all, "automatic" is nearly acceptable terminology for a semi. It's an autoloader. An autopistol. Of all the gun terminology mistakes, this one ranks pretty low.

Second, your letter was rude and insulting to him. This only reinforced any perception he may have had that gun owners are rude and insulting.

To reach people, try instead an excess of politeness and helpfulness. Clarify terminology. Offer to be a fact-checking reference or a source for future stories. Show him that you share his desire for accurate news, and that you just want to help accomplish that.

It really is as simple as catching more flies with honey.

And the best part is, if the person is a hard-core anti, and a biased reporter (and I don't think Rosario is at all), your sweetness and light gives the reporter no target for vitriol in reply.

I would man up, apologize for the harsh words, make friends, and offer your services in the future. The Pioneer Press has reported fairly and even favorably on gun issues -- don't make us new enemies.

Yes, my original letter was a bit harsh, but I do think that journalists must be held to the same high standards that they want everyone else to be held. When Politian’s, police, teachers, judges etc, make a misstatement they are ripped a new one. They work the story from front to back and then inside to outside. So who holds journalists responsible for their mistakes? I do not believe this was an honest mistake. These stories are read and re-read and picked a part by many people prior to publication. So if the Pioneer Press has been fair and balanced, then why the slip this time? They know better and they know the difference. So, again, who holds them responsible to report the truth in a fair and balanced manner?

I did send an apology.

Well it looks like only you and me do. One of the things I support you on.

Holding someone responsible and being nice about it are not mutually exclusive.

Apologies are nice, but not needing them is nicer.

My own take, fwiw, is that a simple, polite note of error would have been more useful. It probably wouldn't have gotten a correction in the paper -- the error, though it is an error, is minor -- but it might have made Rosario a little more careful.

On the latter, good. But you're wrong. Newspaper stories are not, with very few exceptions, "read and re-read and picked a part by many people prior to publication". Many of them are done hurriedly, and barely edited at all, and then only by one person. When there are errors, and there are, they occur from laziness and human frailty, from political orientation and ignorance -- and very, very rarely, from a conscious policy to generate bias.

The problem with many reporters is that they think they are being fair and balanced when, often, they aren't. In the largely liberal echo chamber of the newsrooms, disdain for, among other things, gun owners is the consensus position.

The way to counter that isn't by being loud, but by being patient and persistent -- by embarrassing them, if you're going to, not by the emotional intensity of your criticism (they're used to that), but by an unceasing onslaught of factual correction, and questions that are intrinsically embarrassing.

Colt advertised their pistols as "Colt Automatic Pistols" for years until the birth of political correctness when it became desireable to point out to the "antis" that they were really semi-automatics or self loaders. Being quite "senior" myself I fondly remember the days of automatics and mail order guns that anyone could order through the mail from magazine advertisements. I mentioned this to a gunstore FFL not too long ago and he was amazed that we ever had the ability to order guns through the mail. How soon we forget our lost freedoms.