Charleston

[Oggiedoggie]

Are you a journalist?

 

[Songbird]

 

[cranberry]

How do we begin this month's national conversation about race if we relegate it to the inside pages?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Are you a journalist?

There are plenty of times when the nation is flipping out over the latest sensationalist news story, and papers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal give the story an inside treatment or a reserved treatment on A1.

This is a tragedy, of course. One that a lot of people are interested in. But we need to at least consider the impact of turning one loon after another into a celebrity.

 

[outofplace]

Of course, you are just making assumptions about this particular loon's motivations. You have no idea if media coverage of past shootings had any impact at all, but you are willing to accuse journalists who are doing their jobs properly of being bad citizens based on not much of anything.

People like Roof don't need bad ideas placed in their heads. They are more than capable of coming up with their own.

I always think of the movie "The Program" being temporarily pulled from theaters. For those that don't remember, there was a scene in which the star quarterback leads some of the players out into the middle of a highway and has them lay on the yellow line while cars whiz by. Of course, they are portrayed as drunk idiots and the movie goes on to show that the quarterback was battling depression and alcoholism, which led to borderline suicidal behavior. It's not like his behavior was glorified.

But a bunch of idiots decided to copy the movie and laid down on a busy road. If I remember correctly, nobody got killed, but one of them got hurt, so the movie was pulled and re-released without the offending scene.

Thing is, the people who copied the stunt from the movie would have found some other stupid way to risk their lives. Stupid people are going to do stupid things. Bad people are going to do bad things. If you think a little media coverage was the only thing that leads a guy like Roof to doing something awful, you are kidding yourself. Maybe it comes from a good place. Maybe you really are just trying to find a way to stop this **** from happening so much. Or maybe it's just your contrarian thing for the day. Either way, the argument doesn't hold up at all.

 

[JC]

It's not the press, it's the herb that makes them do it.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Of course, you are just making assumptions about this particular loon's motivations. You have no idea if media coverage of past shootings had any impact at all, but you are willing to accuse journalists who are doing their jobs properly of being bad citizens based on not much of anything.

People like Roof don't need bad ideas placed in their heads. They are more than capable of coming up with their own.

I always think of the movie "The Program" being temporarily pulled from theaters. For those that don't remember, there was a scene in which the star quarterback leads some of the players out into the middle of a highway and has them lay on the yellow line while cars whiz by. Of course, they are portrayed as drunk idiots and the movie goes on to show that the quarterback was battling depression and alcoholism, which led to borderline suicidal behavior. It's not like his behavior was glorified.

But a bunch of idiots decided to copy the movie and laid down on a busy road. If I remember correctly, nobody got killed, but one of them got hurt, so the movie was pulled and re-released without the offending scene.

Thing is, the people who copied the stunt from the movie would have found some other stupid way to risk their lives. Stupid people are going to do stupid things. Bad people are going to do bad things. If you think a little media coverage was the only thing that leads a guy like Roof to doing something awful, you are kidding yourself. Maybe it comes from a good place. Maybe you really are just trying to find a way to stop this **** from happening so much. Or maybe it's just your contrarian thing for the day. Either way, the argument doesn't hold up at all.

I looked it up. One teen did get killed, and some others hurt.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Of course, you are just making assumptions about this particular loon's motivations. You have no idea if media coverage of past shootings had any impact at all, but you are willing to accuse journalists who are doing their jobs properly of being bad citizens based on not much of anything.

I always think of the movie "The Program" being temporarily pulled from theaters. For those that don't remember, there was a scene in which the star quarterback leads some of the players out into the middle of a highway and has them lay on the yellow line while cars whiz by. Of course, they are portrayed as drunk idiots and the movie goes on to show that the quarterback was battling depression and alcoholism, which led to borderline suicidal behavior. It's not like his behavior was glorified.

But a bunch of idiots decided to copy the movie and laid down on a busy road. If I remember correctly, nobody got killed, but one of them got hurt, so the movie was pulled and re-released without the offending scene.

Thing is, the people who copied the stunt from the movie would have found some other stupid way to risk their lives. If you think a little media coverage was the only thing that leads a guy like Roof to doing something awful, you are kidding yourself. Maybe it comes from a good place. Maybe you really are just trying to find a way to stop this **** from happening so much. Or maybe it's just your contrarian thing for the day. Either way, the argument doesn't hold up at all.

My "contrarian thing for the day."

Welcome back. You spent a few months - I assume you were put in the box for a while - not being nearly so insufferable.

First, I make no such assumptions about his motivations. Nor do I think "media coverage was the only thing that leads a guy like Roof to do something awful."

Second, I'm accusing journalists of nothing.

Do us all a favor. Turn off the pretend Internet and read what someone actually wrote before responding.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I remember there was a rampage killing at an Asian church of some sort in Oakland.

I'm pretty sure that was relegated to inside pages and briefs. I wondered why at the time here.

No. That story was on a lot of front pages at the time that you chose to not see for whatever reason. It didn't have legs because it was pretty clear early on that it was random and the guy was certifiably insane with no real motive and was repeatedly declared unfit to stand trial.

Once again, every situation is not exactly the same as every other situation.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

You take the number of these incidents that are directly due to someone copycatting a previous incident.

I'll take those that are the result of a sick, deranged or evil individual acting out on the impulses that flow from within.

I win. Going away.

 

[Dick Whitman]

You take the number of these incidents that are directly due to someone copycatting a previous incident.

I don't think that anybody is saying, "directly," that, "I'm going to do what he did!"

But the constant drumbeat of sensationalism when these things happen can feed these tendencies, I'd think.

To analogize: Ferguson began Baltimore, no?

RickStain, long since gone from the board, used to make a pretty compelling case, using data, that media coverage of rampage shootings led to more rampage shootings.

We ought to at least contemplate the possibility, rather than reflexively decide, open-and-shut, that it can't be.

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

Contemplation and consideration are not things that journalists should have to worry about.

 

[MisterCreosote]

RickStain, long since gone from the board, used to make a pretty compelling case, using data, that media coverage of rampage shootings led to more rampage shootings.

I don't believe that's true, but let's just say it is.

How many "rampage shootings" were in turn prevented partly due to media analysis of warning signs?

 

[Dick Whitman]

I don't believe that's true, but let's just say it is.

How many "rampage shootings" were in turn prevented partly due to media analysis of warning signs?

I don't know. I think that's certainly something to think about, as well, when deciding how to proceed as responsible citizens.

 

[TigerVols]

You take the number of these incidents that are directly due to someone copycatting a previous incident.

I'll take those that are the result of a sick, deranged or evil individual acting out on the impulses that flow from within.

You left out "with easy access to a firearm no one in America rightly needs."

Obama is right.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I don't know. I think that's certainly something to think about, as well, when deciding how to proceed as responsible citizens.

I would think, and this is purely an opinion, that the people who would do something like this are not generally concerned with "sensationalism." If they have an iota of worldly awareness, they'll know their lives are over as soon as they do something like this, regardless of media coverage, and even if they don't off themselves in the process. Unless they're part of the .0001 percent of rampage shooters who are never apprehended.

People for whom that is acceptable aren't going to be easily swayed one way or another. Their actions are owing to a completely unnatural part of the human psyche. It's like trying to reason with a suicide bomber or kamikaze pilot.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

All death stories should go on the obit page. The more deaths one is responsible for, the smaller the type.

And in sports, because we're concerned about the long term concussion effects of playing football, let's relegate coverage of the local NFL team to just the agate in Monday morning's paper.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Why aren't suicides covered?

 

[Mr. Sunshine]

You left out "with easy access to a firearm no one in America rightly needs."

Obama is right.

I'm all for takings away things that people don't need. Too much of that in America.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Why aren't suicides covered?

They are. And they're often glorified as part of the portrait of the "suffering genius," which is extremely ... counterproductive.

Rampage shooters are not glorified in any way.