Magazine Half-Full

You can tell a decent amount about a new organizations politics from the way they report stories and the sources they use when doing so. Consider the following, from Axios:

The U.S. is on pace to see a drop in mass shootings compared to last year, but the number of incidents so far this year has already far surpassed the mid-year totals from a decade ago, per the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).

But the drop from last year, has been substantial, on the order of 23%. Conversely, to get to 2023's numbers from 2014 is a 13% year over year increase. The drop for this year alone erases most of the overall increase since 2020. So why rain on the parade?

Likely to remain in step with their Left-leaning audience, for whom guns are terrible and aught to be banned is conventional wisdom.  Nothing the current level of reduction is remarkable likely wouldn't resonate as much as fact that it fails to make up for a decade worth of increases. Because it's not that Axios doesn't mention the decline. It simple comes later in the article, and then there's an immediate "Yes, but:"

Framing this as a positive development, and sticking with that, fails to package up audience anxiety, which means it's likely to be of less interest, as far as editors are concerned. Which is unfortunate, because perhaps everyone could use a little less anxiety.