What media bias?

Here's a guy who injured himself with his Remington Model 11-48. The forensics lab that tested it said it would discharge when dropped on the butt with the safety on or off. They also measured the trigger pull at ~39 ounces, which is awfully light for a factory trigger; so light, in fact, that I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that was not the factory trigger pull weight and that somebody had gone to "lighten it up" with an Arkansas stone.

Speaking to gun safety in general, there's a reason that hunter safety courses since the days of yore have cautioned against things like climbing up to the deer stand with a loaded weapon: A lot of mechanical safeties are fairly recent inventions. S&W revolvers didn't get hammer blocks until WWII. Colt 1911s didn't have firing pin safeties until the Series 80.

Complaining that a 1920s firearm may not have been drop safe when you were actively ignoring two or more of the Four Rules of firearm safety is like complaining that you drove your Ford Model A head-on into a brick wall and the airbags didn't deploy.

Paw-paw's treasured heirloom shotgun may have been built before the first product liability lawyers slithered onto dry land and, as a consequence, might not be as insensitive to rough handling as GI hardware or newer commercial firearms. Remember that the most important piece of safety gear is the trigger nut, and it should always be torqued to proper specifications.