Was the Oakland rampage downplayed? And why?

[Dick Whitman]

Didn't do a ton of homework on this yet, but I'll try at a later time. But the NYT played it on A10 today, with a front teaser. CNN.com just had it as a headline down the side yesterday. Other sites also resisted the temptation to blow it up, even on a relatively light news day.

Why?

Was it because the media has collectively decided not to glorify these incidents and encourage copy cats?

Is it a bigger story when it happens at Virginia Tech, Columbine, or Northern Illinois and we have students shooting students?

Does the fact that they were all Korean and not white or black - i.e. fer'ners - somehow mitigate against playing it high, even subconsciously?

 

[HejiraHenry]

Or because it was a "religious school"?

 

[LongTimeListener]

I live out here, so obviously it wasn't underplayed to me. But assuming this is true for the nationwide accounts, I would say one large factor is this isn't a "real" college. From what I gather it's a very niche-oriented "school" in the loosest sense, located in a warehouse near the airport. It's more like a workplace shooting than a school one.

 

[rmanfredi]

I live out here, so obviously it wasn't underplayed to me. But assuming this is true for the nationwide accounts, I would say one large factor is this isn't a "real" college. From what I gather it's a very niche-oriented "school" in the loosest sense, located in a warehouse near the airport. It's more like a workplace shooting than a school one.

Yes. From a national standpoint, the odds that this impacted you personally (i.e. you went to that school or know someone who does/did) is pretty small.

 

[DanOregon]

I think most news orgs are geared toward middle-class and upper-middle-class parents with children living with them. We see the inevitable "every parent's worst nightmare" angles - maybe news orgs don't think most parents would have kids attending a non-accredited acupuncture school. More likely - news managers couldn't relate to the story, so they don't think their audiences would as well.
I do think **** hints at an interesting point - these events do seem to get played up when they happen in rural or suburban settings, don't know if it's a "neener, neener, neener" response to areas where people talk about how important gun rights are - or maybe, in cases like a mass shooting in Oakland or other urban settings, they can't opine about well-manicured lawns and a tight-knit community or find anyone to say "I can't believe something like this happened here."

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

We are a good distance from Oakland and had it on Page 1, below the fold.

 

[Lieslntx]

While I fundamental do not like to often agree with ****, I have to admit that I wondered why there was not more coverage about it.

 

[Azrael]

Are we talking about newspapers or are we talking about cable TV? Two considerably different things.

Front page analysis at the NYT.

www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/us/oikos-university-gunman-lined-up-victims.html?hp

 

[Dick Whitman]

Are we talking about newspapers or are we talking about cable TV? Two considerably different things.

Front page analysis at the NYT.

www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/us/oikos-university-gunman-lined-up-victims.html?hp

That story is not on the front page of the print edition.

 

[Azrael]

Are we talking about newspapers or are we talking about cable TV? Two considerably different things.

Front page analysis at the NYT.

www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/us/oikos-university-gunman-lined-up-victims.html?hp

That story is not on the front page of the print edition.

It's on the front page, and is the most-viewed story, at the website.

Interesting discussion to be had about when, if or how we reach the tipping point between paper and digital culture in newsgathering.

 

[YankeeFan]

While I fundamental do not like to often agree with ****, I have to admit that I wondered why there was not more coverage about it.

?

Even if well written, this makes no sense.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

An obvious point is that it is very easy to move a story to a more prominent spot on a Web site in response to traffic, comments, etc. and it is very difficult for a newspaper with a national circulation to move stories around in its print edition.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Or is it because these type of events are becoming so commonplace that the public is becoming de-sensitized to them? The shock value's perhaps no longer there or greatly diminished, to where it's not a top of mind, must read, must know interest to the majority of the public?

Let's consider SportsJournalists.com for example. The thread was on our front page at a point. Now, it's fallen to the depths of page 2---1 post, 172 views. Only 2 threads on the first two pages have fewer views.

If we can answer the why for ourselves, that could translate to why on the broader scale.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Captain, I know TV network news dropped the story because of the Dallas-Ft. Worth tornadoes. Network news loves weather disasters even more than mass murder. Better pictures.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

We don't have a standard for this -- not like we have a written policy like five bodies within 1,000 miles of the paper, 10 bodies within 2,000, 15 within 3,000. We make a subjective choice.

We were the only paper in our state to tear up the cover and splash Gabby Giffords, which I though was the right thing to do. The state's second-largest paper smushed it into a one-column hole. This week they played the Oakland shooting above the fold and we had it below. Maybe they knee-jerked to blowing it last time, but I doubt it. I think we all make these decisions without considering precedents.

Early in my career, a large bunch of people got shot dead in the city I'd just moved to a few months earlier. While it's been hard for me to feel shocked by subsequent shooting incidents. I am usually in favor of getting it on the cover no matter the locale.

 

[britwrit]

Or is it because these type of events are becoming so commonplace that the public is becoming de-sensitized to them? The shock value's perhaps no longer there or greatly diminished, to where it's not a top of mind, must read, must know interest to the majority of the public?

Let's consider SportsJournalists.com for example. The thread was on our front page at a point. Now, it's fallen to the depths of page 2---1 post, 172 views. Only 2 threads on the first two pages have fewer views.

If we can answer the why for ourselves, that could translate to why on the broader scale.

This was probably a factor.This was a middle-aged nutcase, not a middle-class youth gone bad. And as evil and insane as the kids at Virginia Tech and Columbine were, they had the novelty of hatching a complicated plan and going through with it. Your "normal" rampage otherwise gets lost in the background noise.

 

[poindexter]

Korean killing (presumably) Koreans. The public, at large, doesn't give a ****.

 

[Lieslntx]

While I fundamental do not like to often agree with ****, I have to admit that I wondered why there was not more coverage about it.

?

Even if well written, this makes no sense.

Nothing I ever write on this site is well-written.

On this on point, I agreed with ****. It hurt my heart a little to do so.

It's not rocket science.