[fabsroman]

SETTING THE (SAFETY) RECORD STRAIGHT . . . Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident in Texas two weeks ago has generated immeasurable coverage by the media, some of which even poked fun at the incident. But while it was a prime opportunity to focus on hunter safety, it was almost as rare as a hunting accident to find safety statistics mentioned anywhere in the television or print media. In a column in Thursday’s New York Post, John Lott and Joni Ogle wrote, “A Nexis search of news stories found that in all the avalanche of news coverage none of the national television news broadcasts on [last] Sunday and Monday mentioned gun-hunters' safety record. Only three of the 76 newspaper and wire stories through Monday had mentioned anything about these accidents being rare.”