Doing the most good possible...

“Monday, April 16, 2007, will forever be remembered as the deadliest shooting in American history.”

I heard these words, or some variation thereof, many times last week…the broadcaster would dramatically say them on the TV and radio. News websites would offset them in bold writing. And every time I heard or saw these words I shuddered.

Let’s take a step back. There are moments in history where I feel like I’m proud to say I’m a journalist. I’m proud of the work that we do, the noble sacrifice that we make. Journalists were the ones to bring America to the Virginia Tech campus—to help the nation be bound together in the midst of tragedy.

But journalists can also misuse this great power to do harm. As I alluded to in the beginning of the essay, the first major problem journalists seem to have in response to the VA Tech shootings was sensationalizing the story. It gave a sense of awe to the “deadliest shooting in American history.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many psychos out there were listening to the broadcasts or reading the articles thinking, “I could beat that, then they would be talking that way about me.”

Secondly, there was the automatic insertion into the coverage about how this affects the great debate over gun control. Were policy makers discussing gun control? Was the average man-on-the-street discussing gun control? No. There were some foreign media institutions discussing gun control, but that was a little different. Journalists do have an important role in agenda setting, but in this case I think the automatic jump on the gun-control bandwagon only served to hurt journalists’ credibility. It reinforced the stereotype of liberal journalists who will use any situations to promote their agenda.

I am not saying that gun control should never be an issue in relation to the shootings, but the timing and the fact that the issue was solely media-driven, made it appear like journalists were taken advantage of the situation for their own platform.

My final media criticism relating to the crisis (although I’m sure I could think of more than just these three) was the extreme emphasis on the South Korean ethnicity of the shooter. It seems to be one of the most common things we here in journalism training, to quote Fred Fedler about crime stories, —“Never report a suspect’s race or religion unless it is clearly relevant to the story.”

Once again, I do understand that the fact that Seung-Hui Cho was not an American citizen did play some role in his biographical sketch, but the media paid so much attention to it. Headlines read “South Korean identified as shooter.” After reading some of the headlines and emphasis on Cho’s ethnicity, a person might think South Korea was out to get America.

Although there is no excuse for the senseless acts of violence that have taken place against the Asian community in the past week, I think the media helped to perpetuate them by putting so much emphasis on Cho being a South Korean. Instead of Cho being seen as a confused, troubled young man, he was presented as a confused, troubled South Korean…and those two words make a big difference.

I do have one last complaint. This does not directly relate to the media, but other responses. On Friday, the bells at MU rang 32 times. Thirty-three people died at Virginia Tech. Yes, Cho did inflict his own wound, yes he took the lives of many others. But Cho, like the other victims, still has a family that is dealing with loss. His family is probably also dealing with guilt, shame, anger and insults directed at them. Yet, MU and some other memorials did not want to recognize Cho’s humanity. Maybe it was because he was a “South Korean.” Maybe because it just seemed like the easy way out. I would be interested in knowing their rationale.

The original assignment had been to write about Iraq. Although this is much different in some ways, it’s the same. Every day journalists are faced with questions about Iraq—how much of their own agenda should be on the story (it often seems like it is there a lot, on both sides of the story)? How much should we show the humanity of the enemies (even if in doing so it could hurt our own troops)? These are tough questions. Questions that I don’t honestly can’t answer. But my best advice to journalists is don’t miss the question. I think that’s too often the problem with stories. It was the problem with Virginia Tech, it’s often the problem with Iraq. Journalists didn’t spend enough time examining their own biases and taking a step back and in the end the good they did may have equaled the bad.