I'm saddened, but not surprised by the recent Virginia Tech killings. The USA is developing quite a record of these type of murders. What I am interested in however, is the how others on these forums view media coverage of such an event.

Journalists are often accused of insensitivity, and sensationalism in compiling lurid stories of the victims families, or the victims themselves. Big, dumb headlines sell big, dumb stories.

How much are the public to blame for this type of coverage?
Should people be given the facts, and only the facts, allowing the police & University and Government to get on with finding answers and solutions?
Why do people crave the doorstep 'how do you feel' questions when they know what the answer will be?
How should events like this be covered?

I'm a media teacher myself and I would be fascinated to read the responses to my thoughts and any others from the ever thoughtful bunch here at Metacritic.

I only have a moment, but the Internet and TV coverage are all about getting your attention, being first, and sensationalizing. After they get you, then they move on to trying to win you through feeling for the lost loved ones and their families.

The thing is the "facts" are given out before there are any, and then blame always has to be assigned. I'm going to stop and let somebody else answer because I'm on autopilot, just like the coverage.

I did have a discussion with Vinylville's Ambassador Duke about what happened in Australia 11 years back, about Martin Bryant, who killed 35 in Port Arthur. He's serving life in prison and still hasn't said a word about his motivations. I don't think Americans could handle the strict gun control laws which Australia enacted, even if it did reduce such incidents.

I, personally, hate what reporters consider "news" these days. To me, it would be more appropriate if they changed the name to "gossip".

To answer your questions:

quote:

Originally posted by Ishmaels coffin:
How much are the public to blame for this type of coverage?

I would say the public IS at fault when it comes to this kind of reporting. People love gossip. It gives them something to talk about "around the watercooler". As we've seen with what happened to the Duke La Crosse Case, reporters were all over this case & in the end, they weren't to blame. What about the players? Do they get an apology? No. In fact, Imus gets all the attention! After Imus is finally fired, the "news" moves to the real father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby . Why? Because this is what MOST people consider news.

quote:

Should people be given the facts, and only the facts, allowing the police & University and Government to get on with finding answers and solutions?

I think the news should stay out of a story, at least, until all the facts are straight. They put those La Crosse players through hell & it turns out, they were innocent. They are the first to a scene & each station comes up with a different theory on how this coulda went down. Sure, we have "Freedom of the Press", but shouldn't the press have standards on reporting?

quote:

Why do people crave the doorstep 'how do you feel' questions when they know what the answer will be?

I really don't think people crave them. Reporters just want screen time. They want the story "as it breaks". They want eyewitness accounts & the POV's of inept witnesses that the cops don't want to interview.

quote:

How should events like this be covered?

Terrible events like this should be handled with alot more sympathy. When a buddy of mine lost his mother, I didn't run up to him asking questions. I gave him some space. Let him deal with it until he was ready to talk about it. If he were famous, or the victim in a shooting such as this, reporters would have been all over him & that's just not right, at all. Sure, they can report it, but they don't need to be on campus trying to get interviews with every student that walks by. They also don't need it to be covered 'round the clock. The News only needs to be about 15 minutes long, after that, they are repeating themselves over & over. There was a car accident that killed an elderly woman here a few months back & they showed this footage several times during the broadcast. They didn't have anything new to add, just the same thing over & over again.

That's my take on it, anyway.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. i look forward to reading others responses.

The media will of course find blame in proxies like videogames, which initiates a wider meal for pundits to feast on. A story like this is manna for editors, as it has tendrils offering weeks of headlines.

To repaeat a lot that you guyes said:

The media, in general, seems like a soap opera of life. Journalism in America is all about attention-grabbing headlines which are often inacurate. I would have to blame the culture of America today, in which television was originally introduced for entertanment purposes and, therefore, it only makes sense that the "news" should be entertaining.

The media is just doing its job. This is a gigantic story and honestly, a lot of people want to read as much about it as they can.

It's chic to say "the media is so evil" but really, if you don't like it, then don't read/watch/buy it. Because it isn't going to change anytime soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Count Grishnack:
The media is just doing its job. This is a gigantic story and honestly, a lot of people want to read as much about it as they can.

While I agree that people want to hear about it, I must disagree with your point that they are "just doing their job". Their job is to report the news, but in their rush to get the story out first, they don't wait for the facts. Sure, at this point they are all over the campus shooting, but let's not forget the way they pounced on the Duke La Crosse players. At no point did they even take into consideration that these boys were innocent & they were painted an ugly color that has stained their reputation. What would it have hurt to let the case come to a close & then report the "News"? The problem with the media is they are quick to side with the victim, even when the "victim" may not be one at all. I don't think the media is evil, I just think they're greedy for the next big story. I also don't read/watch/buy it, but it's impossible to miss when you're channel surfing & EVERY news station is playing their angle on the same story . I'm not an avid news watcher, but I can tell you about most of the big stories of the year because they make sure to air them ad nauseam.

The problem with waiting is that people will wonder what's going on.

I also don't recall a whole lot of pouncing going on with the Duke case. If anything they questioned the accusors credibility, being a stripper and having similar prior accusations. The judge should have a lot more blame on him for going along with a trial with almost no evidence.

quote:

Posted by Count Grishnack
The media is just doing its job.
It's chic to say 'the media is so evil' but really, if you don't like it, then don't read/watch/buy it.

Please sir! Is this your answer to one of the worst media conglomerates in the world, and its treatment of delicate news items?
If only the media did do its job properly. The vast majority of American media is sensationalist, poor in fact checking, and often distorts the more gullible sections of the public viewpoint with shock and awe tactics.

It is certainly not 'chic' to call the media 'evil.' The critique of journalism has been hand in hand with the news organizations since day one. there is nothing new in keeping a 'media watch.'

In fact, it is incumbent upon us all to monitor our news sources. To do otherwise, to bury your head, cos it makes you annoyed, is paramount to aiding and abetting the further corruption of people like Murdoch & Fox news.

We need people to engage, not look away. Please sir, be a more responsible citizen.

quote:

Originally posted by Count Grishnack:
The problem with waiting is that people will wonder what's going on.

Not necessarily. How would WE, as a nation, know that there IS something going on, unless they told us?

quote:

I also don't recall a whole lot of pouncing going on with the Duke case.

I take it you don't have cable or at the very least, satelite hook-up. The 24 hour news stations were discussing this case like no tomorrow, with Nancy Grace as the number 1 aggressor toward the players, who were already guilty, at least, in her mind .

quote:

If anything they questioned the accusors credibility, being a stripper and having similar prior accusations.

There were really only a handful of reporters who had, brung up the possibility of their innocence & the two most notable ones were Bill O'Reilly & Dan Abrams. Once again, upon the revelation of the boys' innocence, nobody had much to say about it. It suddenly became a footnote, right before the coverage of Imus' crack on a women's basketball team.

quote:

The judge should have a lot more blame on him for going along with a trial with almost no evidence.

I do agree that the Judge is at fault, but it was the media that made it as big of a deal, as it was. Just imagine, only the parties involved would've had the information on this case. Had the media not jumped them like they did, these boys could have left this in their past. Now, everyone in America has an opinion on their guilt or innocence. They will always be associated with this case & many people will only remember they were accused of rape, not found to be innocent, after the fact.

I agree with many of the things said here, but what I would like to do here is not criticisze the media (though they deserve some criticism), but to laud the efforts of 2,000+ anonymous unpaid editors and unpaid article writers who are becoming the news source for many people. Wikinews, Wikipedia's write-your-own-news-article site, has expanded very quickly due to this event, and though it was a horrible event, many people produced honest and not sensationalist articles of what was happening. That deserves praise, and it is better to praise people than criticize others.

quote:

It's chic to say "the media is so evil" but really, if you don't like it, then don't read/watch/buy it. Because it isn't going to change anytime soon.

I don't agree with this at all. It's the media's responsibility to provide the public with reliable news. When the news shifted from an assumed lose to a cash cow in the US, it lost all of its credibility. How can you trust a program when its goal is to achieve higher ratings in place of providing reliable information? The news simply should not be thought of as a source of revenue for a network. If the networks can't handle that, I'd rather they didn't even show it. It's better to not show anything at all then what they're currently running. It's disgusting for me to even watch it anymore.

Christopher Hitchens, who annoys me and thrills me in about equal measure, has a fine article about the Virginia killings over on slate.com.

He makes the excellent point that big news events like this allow people to publicly emote as if this would make themselves more empathetic people, but it's all fake and constructed as a mirror to the hyped news bites.

Score, ish. We recently had a "wear Virginia Tech colors day" at school. (Being pretty near to VT, some of the students here have siblings in VT. Thankfully, none died.) So, everyone came wearing maroon and orange and putting up VT posters and everyone was saying "Oh how horrible" and all that. I was shocked by the atmosphere. Instead of treating this event the way it should be treated, everyone made a big deal about it and we all got in a field to take a picture of all of us wearing VT colors to send to VT. It all felt so fake.

Yep sinister, right on the money. These stunts of public grief just make a more cynical world.

What's worse, nobody at our school honestly "cared", if you will. The fake support seemed enough to them, eh?

Wow, one month later - and notice, the world has moved on. Does this say something or was this event just not that big? I mean, it is horrible, but - and this is the part I can't say without sounding savage - is there a reason to care anymore now that supporting VT is no longer chic?

Sinister? Exactly.

Sin, I must say you make a good point, and I do agree with you. That said, it honestly does seem a little bit insensitive to me to argue this point right after the killings. I agree that the coverage of the event was excessive and the outpouring of emotion fake for some, but there are many for whom the grief is very real. Nobody is harmed by a little fake grief.

I think that the important issue has much less to do with those who show fake grief, but rather that those who don't feel strong grief are expected to demonstrate grief. We received an email at work a month ago that read something like this "Please plan on wearing VA Tech colors to work on Friday". I resented the notion that I was supposed to wear the colors, so I didn't. However, I then realized that it was almost equally as bad that I probably would have gone out of my way to avoid wearing VA Tech colors, as if I had to demonstrate to the world that no, I wasn't losing sleep at nights.

I honestly have nothing in Virginia Tech colors - so whether I wanted to or not, I couldn't.