Tom Clancy has died. The prolific writer passed away Tuesday at age 66 after a brief illness, his lawyer told the media.
What that media is now telling the public in their reflections on the man’s life is essentially what everyone already knows due to the massive popularity of his work: He was a best-selling author whose military and intelligence-themed novels were adapted into blockbuster movies and video games. Some will even give a passing nod to Clancy’s “conservative” political views, although even that is tempered, as evidenced by author and journalist Hector Tobar’s admission in The Los Angeles Times that “Clancy's appeal was, for the most part, bipartisan.”
What Tobar didn’t mention was that Clancy had been a life member of the National Rifle Association, that he had written a passionate argument in defense of the Second Amendment in his foreword to NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s book “Guns, Crime and Freedom,” and that he had written another foreword for the book "NRA: An American Legend."
USA Today made no mention of Clancy’s NRA affiliation or staunch support of an individual right to keep and bear arms either, in its look back on Clancy's life and career. Nor did The New York Times think it relevant to squeeze in even a mention in their two-page post.
It’s the same incomplete story at CNN. And at The Chicago Tribune. Ditto for The Washington Post, which couldn’t find room for a brief “oh, by the way” in three web pages of memories, and NBC News, which relied on the Associated Press, and ABC News, and CBS News.
Fox News managed to break away from the competition, reporting “Outside of his creative work, Clancy was a supporter of the Republican Party and became a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association in 1978.” Politico, to its credit, also found this aspect of Clancy’s life relevant to bring to its readers’ attention.
It’s not that the other major “Authorized Journalist” outlets didn’t know about Clancy’s gun advocacy, and it’s not like “real reporters,” with all the organizational resources at their disposal, shouldn’t have discovered such widely-known and easily-found information in their assignment and provided a thorough and accurate memorial. That so many evidently missed such a basic and important aspect of the man's essence points to one of two probabilities: Either ignorant and/or lazy "legitimate news media" almost universally didn’t do their jobs, or more likely, it doesn’t help an anti-gun agenda to let the public know that a man whose work they enthusiastically embraced had views about gun ownership opposed to editorial policies promoting anti-gun narratives.
Perhaps most disappointing of all, at least to Clancy’s fellow NRA members, is the absence of a visible tribute on any of the association’s websites at this writing (there is a link to the Politico story listed in the NRA News "Today's Headlines" menu). Hopefully, one is in the works and has just not been finalized yet.
UPDATE: NRA News added a nice photo tribute.
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