CWKahrFan, I think you have it about right.
I'd add a couple of things: the first show, "Guns in America," was a lot less biased than I'd expected: it seemed that the folks who made it did try to be fair, and overall, I thought the pro-gun folks came off rather better than the antis. And one reason it seemed a bit bland, I think, was that they stayed away from the typical knee-jerk emotional stuff -- heart-wrenching interviews with survivors of gun violence, and interviews with the "average gun nut" with the punchline that he (or she
) is
actually carrying a gun at that moment (Horrors!).
I'd a lot rather they kept it bland, fair, and informative -- keeping in mind that it would have been more informative for the average viewer who pays less attention to all this than we do.
And, yes, the program on Adam Lanza was sort of pathetic -- not really any new information about him, and some pretty unsurprising stuff about his mother -- nothing that shed any real light. Much is being made of the "new" information that he had a diagnosis of "sensory integration disorder," but as I understand it, that can be an aspect of autism, so I'm not sure that counts as new.
I watched it hoping that they'd say something about recent reports that investigators found pictures and newspaper clippings about Anders Breivik in Lanza's room, but there was not a word about that.
And the second half of the Frontline episode could have been summed up in one sentence: "People in Newtown are divided over gun control." Wow.
Both seemed mostly like attempts to cash in on a hot topic -- another reminder that news reporting is these days is more about ratings than about providing information or intelligent analysis.