After nearly three years as one of the few pro-Second Amendment voices on CNN, Stephen Gutowski, founder of The Reload will no longer be a contributor at the network. In a thread on X announcing his departure, Gutowski said he didn’t harbor any ill will toward CNN and said he was proud of the work he did there while they would have him, and seemed optimistic about what the future held.
In a piece published on his firearms journalism site The Reload, Gutowski reflected on his time at CNN. Despite largely being brought on to discuss mass shootings, he noted that he was able to expand the conversation beyond just the tragedy in the headlines:
[O]verall, I’m very proud of the work I did for the network.
It wasn’t always perfect, of course. I thought going in that I would probably spend most of my time reacting to mass shootings since major media outlets rarely discuss guns outside of those terrible incidents. And that is how it played out for the most part.
Still, I think I was able to improve CNN’s coverage of mass shootings and occasionally expand the scope of its gun coverage beyond tragedies. After all, there is a lot more to guns in America than high-profile killings or even crime generally. Hundreds of millions of Americans report having a gun in their home, and the vast majority of them will never commit a crime.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to share that point of view with one of the world’s largest news companies,” Gutowski added. “I’m grateful that I was able to share my expertise on firearms form and function, as well as the laws and politics that govern their use. I appreciate that CNN reporters, producers, and hosts treated me with respect as an expert on those topics.”
Gutowski’s hiring came during the relatively short period of time that Chris Licht was the head of the company. In their press release, at the time, CNN touted Gutowski’s experience and how he's been featured in a wide range of publications, both right and left alike (Click “expand”):
The Reload founder Stephen Gutowski has been writing about guns and politics since he founded his first publication back in 2009. Before that, he spent almost seven years as a staff writer at The Washington Free Beacon. His work has also been published by The Atlantic, The Dispatch, National Review, Ammoland, and The Washington Examiner Magazine. His reporting has been featured in publications including CNBC, Fox News, The New York Times, Bearing Arms, The Washington Post, NPR, The Drudge Report, ABC News, and many more. Gutowski was the only journalist to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine’s “Guns in America” edition. Gutowski has won multiple awards for his reporting over the past several years. His work on the show Range Time With Stephen Gutowski received two Telly Awards alongside offerings from publications like CBS News and The Wall Street Journal. He was named Journalist of the Year by the Second Amendment Foundation in 2016 and most recently received the 2020 Bill of Rights Award from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
That the same time, CNN also hired Jennifer Mascia to be the anti-gun rights voice. And as noted in his piece, Gutowski had been the last one standing for a while: “I was the last outside contributor on CNN’s Guns in America team that the company decided not to renew, following the departure of two other colleagues last year.”
That fact seemed to show that CNN valued what Gutowski had brought to the table as a unique conservative voice that could represent many gun owners in America, rather than the dime-a-dozen anti-gun rights advocates on the left.
“CNN told me it has decided to move all its gun reporting in-house, and that’s why it chose not to pick up another year of my contract. You may still see me on the channel from time to time, but I will no longer be exclusive to them,” Gutowski explained.
CNN declined to comment publicly when contacted by NewsBusters.
NewsBusters looks forward to having Gutowski on our podcast again in the future. You can listen to his previous appearance from June 9, 2021 here.
