Talking about the Iraq War makes me angry.
I don't hate the war, per se. I could care less about the war. We went over there, unprovoked, sure, but we did a good thing in getting rid of Saddam. He killed men -- then charged the family thousands of dollars for the bullet used to do it. He and his sons raped and killed, then punished anyone who talked about it. At that point, we had done something that made the world better.
I just hate that we can't cover the war without being crucified as pushing a liberal agenda. Things are bad. Truthfully, objectively, honestly, things are bad. "The good things" that are happening over there are few and far between, and no one -- Iraqi or otherwise -- can get too excited about clean water or a friggin' playground when it's offset by the rape of a 14-year-old and the murder of her family. Or an Abu Ghraib. Or any story with a lead like this: "Cpl Donald Payne, 35, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial of seven British soldiers accused of beating and killing Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, while he was held by UK troops in Basra in September 2003."
In my humble opinion, that's on par with a taped beheading. Hell, maybe even worse: at least the guys doing he beheading were making a statement; our guys are just sadistic for the fun of it. But that's neither here nor there...
I hate that the idea of a liberal media bias is so ingrained that people ignore blatant attempts to skew the news the other way. I hate that whatever people choose to believe about the war, they can continue to do so because they can choose who gives them their "news" based on their war views.
It makes what we do inconsequential. Completely inconsequential. The only thing we can do that won't immediately get politicized and spun is the daily numbers report. Oh, wait. We can't do that. Running the numbers of American dead is only delivering the bad news, and that is unacceptable.
The worst part about it is that I see no end. The information explosion has required a way to filter through it, and a political filter is one popular option the media has embraced. It's easy to throw out words we've learned in school: "only run it if it's balanced!" "only show the objective stuff!" But it's much more complicated than that. Do you run one "good" story for every "bad"? What counts as good? What's bad? Maybe we even have a sliding scale -- one troop homecoming equals one car bombing, or some such, whereas the story quoted above requires seventeen elementary school openings to balance it out.
Maybe we take another approach, with each news agency sending two reporters -- one to cover exclusively bad news, and one to cover exclusively good.
Genius. If we take that approach, we'll be back to the good ol' days before we know it. I promise.
No... there is no going back. We're here now. And we're going to be here for a looong time.
I have no interest in war coverage, or even political coverage, for exactly this reason. I don't want to cover anything where the truth is biased.
The truth is something that doesn't require balance; balance comes in when the truth isn't clear.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Covering Tragedy
Shortly after I learned of the Virginia Tech shootings, I got a random IM on AOL Instant Messanger while watching the news. It was from a girl from a message board I sometimes post on. I had never talked to her, and she really didn't know anything about me. After a short conversation, I mention the shootings. Her immediate response is something along the lines of, "Now we get to watch the media turn it into a circus, that's the saddest thing." She probably felt a little stupid when I later told her I was a journalism major, but in reality, I can't really argue with her.
The three cable news networks, especially, basically treat real-life tragedies as if they were a movie. They create villains---the criticism of the administration immediately before the facts were even known, was sickening. Sure, they probably did deserve to have some questions asked of them, but there’s only one person who deserves to be treated like a monster in this situation. They create heroes, as well, out of those who hold doors closed and risk their own lives to help others. These stories should absolutely be told, but the dramatization of them for strictly entertainment purposes, is wrong.
That said, I have a hard time criticizing anyone who can cover tragedy on the spot, simply because I don’t know if I could do it. I have a hard enough time watching horrific events unfold from the comfort of my own home without getting emotional, and as much as I like to think that I would be able to pull myself together for the sake of journalism, I really am confident that I could do.
While watching the coverage, I was most amazed when members of the Virginia Tech student newspaper were interviewed. The editor of the paper appeared completely unshaken. She spoke of what was going on calmly, and even seemed to revel in the moment somewhat. That blew me away. If something like this happened at Mizzou, I would be a wreck. I can’t imagine not being. It’s hard enough for outsiders to cover tragedy, let alone those that close to her. This isn’t a criticism of her humanity though, but a tip of my cap to her. We need people like that. Someone has to be there to stay composed when the rest of us are shaken, and someone has to tell us the stories we need to hear. These news networks do it, and they do it well.
The competition amongst various news outlets is intense when it comes to breaking news, and there’s no denying the fact that networks have to consider ratings and other aspects of the business side of things. They have to make things interesting to keep viewers from changing the channels. I understand this, and others outside of journalism need to, also. Still, there’s a fine line between making news interesting and making light out of things. Tragedies like the Virginia Tech shootings should be treated as what they are, absolutely horrific and heartbreakingly sad events. They should be mourned, not used as an advertisement for why viewers should tune in. All the commercials I saw on news networks the night after the shooting telling viewers to “Tune in to our show tomorrow night for the latest on the Virginia Tech massacre!” made me sick. People know what happened, they know the news networks will have coverage of them. There’s no need to try to exploit tragedy to attract attention to your show.
The same can be said about coverage of the war in Iraq. By this point, it is completely taken for granted, and it doesn’t even seem to be major news when troops or civilians are killed. It seems the only time we hear much about the war is when a news network wants to promote a show they have coming up that will talk about it. Oh, and slightly off topic, as much as I dislike our current president and administration, Keith Olberman opening and closing his show every night by saying it’s the such and such night since the declaration of “missing accomplished” in Iraq is ridiculous. It’s one thing to criticize a president, but to make light of the fact that people are getting killed every day and to turn it into a joke that we’re still involved in this stupid war, is horrible. Then again, humor might make people watch. After all, isn’t that all that matters?
The three cable news networks, especially, basically treat real-life tragedies as if they were a movie. They create villains---the criticism of the administration immediately before the facts were even known, was sickening. Sure, they probably did deserve to have some questions asked of them, but there’s only one person who deserves to be treated like a monster in this situation. They create heroes, as well, out of those who hold doors closed and risk their own lives to help others. These stories should absolutely be told, but the dramatization of them for strictly entertainment purposes, is wrong.
That said, I have a hard time criticizing anyone who can cover tragedy on the spot, simply because I don’t know if I could do it. I have a hard enough time watching horrific events unfold from the comfort of my own home without getting emotional, and as much as I like to think that I would be able to pull myself together for the sake of journalism, I really am confident that I could do.
While watching the coverage, I was most amazed when members of the Virginia Tech student newspaper were interviewed. The editor of the paper appeared completely unshaken. She spoke of what was going on calmly, and even seemed to revel in the moment somewhat. That blew me away. If something like this happened at Mizzou, I would be a wreck. I can’t imagine not being. It’s hard enough for outsiders to cover tragedy, let alone those that close to her. This isn’t a criticism of her humanity though, but a tip of my cap to her. We need people like that. Someone has to be there to stay composed when the rest of us are shaken, and someone has to tell us the stories we need to hear. These news networks do it, and they do it well.
The competition amongst various news outlets is intense when it comes to breaking news, and there’s no denying the fact that networks have to consider ratings and other aspects of the business side of things. They have to make things interesting to keep viewers from changing the channels. I understand this, and others outside of journalism need to, also. Still, there’s a fine line between making news interesting and making light out of things. Tragedies like the Virginia Tech shootings should be treated as what they are, absolutely horrific and heartbreakingly sad events. They should be mourned, not used as an advertisement for why viewers should tune in. All the commercials I saw on news networks the night after the shooting telling viewers to “Tune in to our show tomorrow night for the latest on the Virginia Tech massacre!” made me sick. People know what happened, they know the news networks will have coverage of them. There’s no need to try to exploit tragedy to attract attention to your show.
The same can be said about coverage of the war in Iraq. By this point, it is completely taken for granted, and it doesn’t even seem to be major news when troops or civilians are killed. It seems the only time we hear much about the war is when a news network wants to promote a show they have coming up that will talk about it. Oh, and slightly off topic, as much as I dislike our current president and administration, Keith Olberman opening and closing his show every night by saying it’s the such and such night since the declaration of “missing accomplished” in Iraq is ridiculous. It’s one thing to criticize a president, but to make light of the fact that people are getting killed every day and to turn it into a joke that we’re still involved in this stupid war, is horrible. Then again, humor might make people watch. After all, isn’t that all that matters?
Bring back the fair, unbiased coverage
The April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech were, statistically, the worst campus shootings in United States history.
Newspapers, as usual, were right on the scene. But they had several questions to ask themselves. Reporters considered what angles to focus on. Photographers considered what photos to use – an even more difficult decision once the “military-style” photos of the gunman surfaced. Designers had to find a way to arrange the copy. And managers were in the background, supervising it all. Overall, I think they did a good job.
Newspapers all over did their best to inform their readers what had happened and keep them abreast of new developments. Those in or near college towns also answered another question many had: “what if this happened here? Would we be prepared?”
I was in Southeast Missouri when the shootings occurred, on a weeklong internship at the Southeast Missouri newspaper for another class which I’m enrolled in. I first saw the update on the Internet, and then was glued to Web and television updates until I had to leave for my copy desk shift. At the newspaper’s afternoon budget meeting, there was no question that the article on the shooting would be the centerpiece that day – a decision that was made partially because of a lack of other good art, but more so, I believe, because it was the big, breaking news. We only hoped that we could use a draft of the story that would advance what readers had already read and heard. Since the paper is located just a couple of miles from Southeast Missouri State University, we also ran a local sidebar with information from the college about its preparedness for a similar accident on its campus.
Newspaper designs varied. One of the most touching designs I saw was that at the Virginian-Pilot. The front had a memorial ribbon in Virginia Tech colors, and then simply listed the names, ages and a small blurb of information about each of the victims. All of the newspapers on Newseum gave a reverent feel to the design the day after the massacre. It was later in the week, when the video sent to NBC by the shooter surfaced, that newspapers had tough questions to deal with. An overwhelming number of newspapers on Newseum used one of the shots – either with the guns pointed to the side or straightforward – as their main art. Some tabloid-style papers used the photo as the entire cover. The Columbia Missourian used neither. Granted, there was a fatal shooting in Columbia on the same news cycle. But I think the decision not to run the photos – especially on the front – would have stood regardless of this other news. In Friday’s design critique, we discussed the photos. And the class of designers overwhelmingly agreed that those photos have no place in a family newspaper. They can invoke a sense of fear. Those pictures very easily bring about questions from children that parents most likely don’t want to have to explain. We were all comfortable with giving a Web site where the photos could be found for those interested, since they were splashed all over the Web.
In the beginning of the Iraq War, journalists practiced the same characteristics I just pointed out that have been in the media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings over the past week. They were reverent. They covered the war from several angles.
But those attributes aren’t so apparent anymore. Lost are the reverence and balanced coverage on the good and the bad in Iraq. At the beginning of the war, I would read every story in the New York Times headlines that were e-mailed to me every morning. I rarely read these stories in their entirety anymore. They are too similar to one another and often show a bias against the war – reporting the now-higher death toll or recent violence. I think these things are important to report. But why not show what is being done in Iraq to make it better? Show the good things the soldiers are doing and accomplishing.
The managing editor at the newspaper where I will work after graduation lost her son in Iraq last October. For many like her, covering the Iraq War as if it is just a big mistake makes it even harder for these grieving families. They’re basically being told that their son, husband, dad, brother or loved one died in a pointless war – that they died for no reason at all. But it was something the soldiers did believe in. I know that’s what gave the managing editor comfort – that at least her son died doing something he believed in and wanted to do since he was a small child.
I charge journalists, especially those in our graduating class who are about to enter the industry, to change this. Bring back those characteristics we saw in the beginning of the war and in the Virginia Tech shootings. We owe it to ourselves and our readership to be fair and balanced – because that is the basis of journalism.
Newspapers, as usual, were right on the scene. But they had several questions to ask themselves. Reporters considered what angles to focus on. Photographers considered what photos to use – an even more difficult decision once the “military-style” photos of the gunman surfaced. Designers had to find a way to arrange the copy. And managers were in the background, supervising it all. Overall, I think they did a good job.
Newspapers all over did their best to inform their readers what had happened and keep them abreast of new developments. Those in or near college towns also answered another question many had: “what if this happened here? Would we be prepared?”
I was in Southeast Missouri when the shootings occurred, on a weeklong internship at the Southeast Missouri newspaper for another class which I’m enrolled in. I first saw the update on the Internet, and then was glued to Web and television updates until I had to leave for my copy desk shift. At the newspaper’s afternoon budget meeting, there was no question that the article on the shooting would be the centerpiece that day – a decision that was made partially because of a lack of other good art, but more so, I believe, because it was the big, breaking news. We only hoped that we could use a draft of the story that would advance what readers had already read and heard. Since the paper is located just a couple of miles from Southeast Missouri State University, we also ran a local sidebar with information from the college about its preparedness for a similar accident on its campus.
Newspaper designs varied. One of the most touching designs I saw was that at the Virginian-Pilot. The front had a memorial ribbon in Virginia Tech colors, and then simply listed the names, ages and a small blurb of information about each of the victims. All of the newspapers on Newseum gave a reverent feel to the design the day after the massacre. It was later in the week, when the video sent to NBC by the shooter surfaced, that newspapers had tough questions to deal with. An overwhelming number of newspapers on Newseum used one of the shots – either with the guns pointed to the side or straightforward – as their main art. Some tabloid-style papers used the photo as the entire cover. The Columbia Missourian used neither. Granted, there was a fatal shooting in Columbia on the same news cycle. But I think the decision not to run the photos – especially on the front – would have stood regardless of this other news. In Friday’s design critique, we discussed the photos. And the class of designers overwhelmingly agreed that those photos have no place in a family newspaper. They can invoke a sense of fear. Those pictures very easily bring about questions from children that parents most likely don’t want to have to explain. We were all comfortable with giving a Web site where the photos could be found for those interested, since they were splashed all over the Web.
In the beginning of the Iraq War, journalists practiced the same characteristics I just pointed out that have been in the media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings over the past week. They were reverent. They covered the war from several angles.
But those attributes aren’t so apparent anymore. Lost are the reverence and balanced coverage on the good and the bad in Iraq. At the beginning of the war, I would read every story in the New York Times headlines that were e-mailed to me every morning. I rarely read these stories in their entirety anymore. They are too similar to one another and often show a bias against the war – reporting the now-higher death toll or recent violence. I think these things are important to report. But why not show what is being done in Iraq to make it better? Show the good things the soldiers are doing and accomplishing.
The managing editor at the newspaper where I will work after graduation lost her son in Iraq last October. For many like her, covering the Iraq War as if it is just a big mistake makes it even harder for these grieving families. They’re basically being told that their son, husband, dad, brother or loved one died in a pointless war – that they died for no reason at all. But it was something the soldiers did believe in. I know that’s what gave the managing editor comfort – that at least her son died doing something he believed in and wanted to do since he was a small child.
I charge journalists, especially those in our graduating class who are about to enter the industry, to change this. Bring back those characteristics we saw in the beginning of the war and in the Virginia Tech shootings. We owe it to ourselves and our readership to be fair and balanced – because that is the basis of journalism.
I Get Lost In An Array of Numbers and Can We Stop Playing the Blame Game
I’m a journalist. I consider myself to be pretty educated. I love reading and I especially love reading newspapers—something I do on a daily basis. But if someone asked me to explain what is really going on in the Iraq war, I feel as though I would not be able to offer anything substantial to the table. Why is that?
I get the New York Times sent to my email every morning. I scan through the stories, and everyday there is a story on Iraq. I read the story in its entirety if I have time, but if I’m pressed for time the other stories usually get priority over the daily Iraq story. Why? Because I feel like I get pretty much the same thing every day. This might sound incredibly insensitive but it’s just a different name and a different bombsite. This is not to say that I do not feel honored that these women and men are fighting for my freedom in Iraq or that I do not feel sympathy for their family and friends upon their death. However, the media has not done a good enough job relaying the Iraq war to the public. The daily stories get turned into more of a numbers game. “The death toll rose to xxxxxx today”. I need more.
I need stories beyond the numbers. I want stories about the soldiers who are dying, stories about the soldiers’ daily life in Iraq, stories about the good things that are happening in Iraq (I know there have to be some things), and I want more stories on the Iraqis living through this war.
I get a similar feeling when I read about Darfur. “XX million people have been displaced and xx people have died”. After a while statements like those lose their meanings. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has provided the public with more. He has been committed to bringing the public the full story about Darfur. However, he faces another barrier- fighting America’s indifference to the outside world- especially to Africa. At least Iraq has American soldiers on its soil because if it didn’t, I’m not sure if Americans would care that much.
On a slightly different note- I wish the media would stop playing the blame game. I know its human nature to want to point a finger especially when there is a tragedy or a controversial topic. But what is the point of pointing fingers about the Iraq war? What is the point for searching for the justification? We entered this war four years ago- let’s focus on the present and not so much on the past. What’s done is done and now as a nation we have to deal with the fact that our countrymen are over in Iraq fighting with no end date necessarily in site.
A similar thing happened with the VA Tech shootings last week. It wasn’t but a few hours after the incident that people started pointing fingers. I can understand parents being angry and wanting to point fingers at the chancellor. That’s human nature. But is that supposed to be the nature of the media? If it’s a way of trying to prevent future incidents like this from happening, that’s one thing, but to attack the man only hours after the most violent school shooting is not good journalism.
I get the New York Times sent to my email every morning. I scan through the stories, and everyday there is a story on Iraq. I read the story in its entirety if I have time, but if I’m pressed for time the other stories usually get priority over the daily Iraq story. Why? Because I feel like I get pretty much the same thing every day. This might sound incredibly insensitive but it’s just a different name and a different bombsite. This is not to say that I do not feel honored that these women and men are fighting for my freedom in Iraq or that I do not feel sympathy for their family and friends upon their death. However, the media has not done a good enough job relaying the Iraq war to the public. The daily stories get turned into more of a numbers game. “The death toll rose to xxxxxx today”. I need more.
I need stories beyond the numbers. I want stories about the soldiers who are dying, stories about the soldiers’ daily life in Iraq, stories about the good things that are happening in Iraq (I know there have to be some things), and I want more stories on the Iraqis living through this war.
I get a similar feeling when I read about Darfur. “XX million people have been displaced and xx people have died”. After a while statements like those lose their meanings. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has provided the public with more. He has been committed to bringing the public the full story about Darfur. However, he faces another barrier- fighting America’s indifference to the outside world- especially to Africa. At least Iraq has American soldiers on its soil because if it didn’t, I’m not sure if Americans would care that much.
On a slightly different note- I wish the media would stop playing the blame game. I know its human nature to want to point a finger especially when there is a tragedy or a controversial topic. But what is the point of pointing fingers about the Iraq war? What is the point for searching for the justification? We entered this war four years ago- let’s focus on the present and not so much on the past. What’s done is done and now as a nation we have to deal with the fact that our countrymen are over in Iraq fighting with no end date necessarily in site.
A similar thing happened with the VA Tech shootings last week. It wasn’t but a few hours after the incident that people started pointing fingers. I can understand parents being angry and wanting to point fingers at the chancellor. That’s human nature. But is that supposed to be the nature of the media? If it’s a way of trying to prevent future incidents like this from happening, that’s one thing, but to attack the man only hours after the most violent school shooting is not good journalism.
The war deserves coverage too
During the day of the shootings at Virginia Tech, I spent a good part of the day watching news coverage like many other people. I was shocked and frightened trying to understand what had just happened. But of everything I watched and heard that day on television, one anecdote really stuck in my mind and made me think. A Virginia Tech student was being interviewed and he spoke about how his friend fighting in
This student’s story emphasized how sad and significant this senseless tragedy was, but it also made me think about how much coverage the media budgets to tragedies and deaths like at Virginia Tech and how little the media allocates to the War in Iraq. For example, according to Reuters, at least 82 non-insurgents were killed or had their bodies found in
It’s pretty easy to understand why something like the Virginia Tech shootings receives so much media coverage, while the War in
But, the coverage allocated to events on the day of the Virginia Tech shootings doesn’t bother me as much as the way the War in
Massacres happen all over the world, but until it happens inside your little bubble, the weight doesn’t really sink in. The Virginia Tech tragedy was absolutely horrible. But, hopefully people will realize from this that all life is precious, and have similar reactions to some of the violence going on in the rest of the world. After all, it’s up to the journalists to help get them there.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sports are important, but...
When I first heard about what happened at Virginia Tech, I think my initial reactions were probably pretty common.
The feelings of shock and sadness were some of the strongest I have felt in my entire life. Part of me wondered what it was like to have a friend, or multiple friends, murdered on that day, and how I would have reacted. I also wondered what I would have done if I were confronted with that situation. Would I have tried to run away from the shooter, or would I have attempted to foil him, knowing it may have meant my death? Hopefully, I will never know for sure.
Being a journalist, my mind then wandered over to how the media was covering the event. Among my criticisms were the words used to describe the day. “Massacre” and “Slaughter” were two of the words used and those made me feel uncomfortable. For some reason, many networks and news organizations chose to over-dramatize the day’s events by using these sensationalistic and insensitive words. Isn’t “32 murdered at Virginia Tech” enough, I wondered?
Over the next couple of days following the shooting, I tried to escape the coverage as best I could. CNN.com and CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com were two sites I didn’t visit. I didn’t want to know the details too well, because, frankly, they were too disturbing for me. I didn’t want to think about the horror of the event. And if that kept me from being as well-informed as I could have been, so be it. Besides, much of the information found a way of trickling to me whether I wanted it to or not. I know that the e-mail system at Tech may be flawed and that the university was not locked down as it should have been.
To escape from what happened, I do what I do often. I went to ESPN.com and tried to read as much as I could about sports. On that Monday, I wondered aloud when would the first stories about Virginia Tech sports come out. And, of course, they came out that very day. Football coach Frank Beamer said it was a terrible day for the university, and his basketball counterpart, Seth Greenberg, said the same. My reaction to that was twofold. The first was: Duh. Of course they are going to say something like this. It would only have been newsworthy if one of them had come out and said something like “Gee, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds” or something like that.
But the second, and more serious, reaction I felt was that sports was being injected into a story where it didn’t belong, and I had seen this before. During the 2006 football season, the New Orleans Saints were being portrayed as an inspirational group uniting the entire Gulf region. Some said they were giving hope to the area. Whatever. All I know is that not too many of the people that were at those Saints games this season were from the 9th ward, people who lost everything. Saying the Saints were giving Gulf residents an escape is fine. But that’s all the Saints were doing. And if I remember correctly, they were not the best supported team before the hurricane. They were always one of the teams mentioned to take the vacant LA football market, and not stay in New Orleans.
Later in the week, ESPN and NBC made a big deal of Virginia Tech’s first baseball game since the tragedy. When I think of Virginia Tech athletics, I do not think of baseball first or even second. The school is lacking a baseball tradition so much that it has only one obscure player in the majors. Still, when the Hokies lost 11-9 to Miami on Friday, it was described as an evening that “began the healing process” and a “return to normalcy”. Sure. If that’s true, that’s great. However, I doubt that a team that is miles behind the football and basketball programs (in terms of popularity) at the school is really doing that.
I just don’t think that sports should be portrayed as this great healer in our society. Yes, they can provide great excitement and stimulate some of our deepest passions. But only for a couple hours. The real healing and return to a somewhat-normal life at Tech starts with each student dealing with the tragedy in their own way. And I'm betting it wasn't from some college baseball game like ESPN told us.
The feelings of shock and sadness were some of the strongest I have felt in my entire life. Part of me wondered what it was like to have a friend, or multiple friends, murdered on that day, and how I would have reacted. I also wondered what I would have done if I were confronted with that situation. Would I have tried to run away from the shooter, or would I have attempted to foil him, knowing it may have meant my death? Hopefully, I will never know for sure.
Being a journalist, my mind then wandered over to how the media was covering the event. Among my criticisms were the words used to describe the day. “Massacre” and “Slaughter” were two of the words used and those made me feel uncomfortable. For some reason, many networks and news organizations chose to over-dramatize the day’s events by using these sensationalistic and insensitive words. Isn’t “32 murdered at Virginia Tech” enough, I wondered?
Over the next couple of days following the shooting, I tried to escape the coverage as best I could. CNN.com and CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com were two sites I didn’t visit. I didn’t want to know the details too well, because, frankly, they were too disturbing for me. I didn’t want to think about the horror of the event. And if that kept me from being as well-informed as I could have been, so be it. Besides, much of the information found a way of trickling to me whether I wanted it to or not. I know that the e-mail system at Tech may be flawed and that the university was not locked down as it should have been.
To escape from what happened, I do what I do often. I went to ESPN.com and tried to read as much as I could about sports. On that Monday, I wondered aloud when would the first stories about Virginia Tech sports come out. And, of course, they came out that very day. Football coach Frank Beamer said it was a terrible day for the university, and his basketball counterpart, Seth Greenberg, said the same. My reaction to that was twofold. The first was: Duh. Of course they are going to say something like this. It would only have been newsworthy if one of them had come out and said something like “Gee, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds” or something like that.
But the second, and more serious, reaction I felt was that sports was being injected into a story where it didn’t belong, and I had seen this before. During the 2006 football season, the New Orleans Saints were being portrayed as an inspirational group uniting the entire Gulf region. Some said they were giving hope to the area. Whatever. All I know is that not too many of the people that were at those Saints games this season were from the 9th ward, people who lost everything. Saying the Saints were giving Gulf residents an escape is fine. But that’s all the Saints were doing. And if I remember correctly, they were not the best supported team before the hurricane. They were always one of the teams mentioned to take the vacant LA football market, and not stay in New Orleans.
Later in the week, ESPN and NBC made a big deal of Virginia Tech’s first baseball game since the tragedy. When I think of Virginia Tech athletics, I do not think of baseball first or even second. The school is lacking a baseball tradition so much that it has only one obscure player in the majors. Still, when the Hokies lost 11-9 to Miami on Friday, it was described as an evening that “began the healing process” and a “return to normalcy”. Sure. If that’s true, that’s great. However, I doubt that a team that is miles behind the football and basketball programs (in terms of popularity) at the school is really doing that.
I just don’t think that sports should be portrayed as this great healer in our society. Yes, they can provide great excitement and stimulate some of our deepest passions. But only for a couple hours. The real healing and return to a somewhat-normal life at Tech starts with each student dealing with the tragedy in their own way. And I'm betting it wasn't from some college baseball game like ESPN told us.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
When Mr. Weiss wanted to watch the news, he watched Fox News.
It was a predictable action for my then-boyfriend’s father. Mr. Weiss, a 1st Class Staff Sergeant, had retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of service. He then got a job testing weapons and other gadgets for a group that contracted with the military. He would spend several weekends a year reporting to military groups in Washington D.C. about the findings of the tests.
Mr. Weiss’ oldest son had spent a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the Marine Corps. He was sent home after sustaining minor injuries from a land mine.
The Iraq War was personal to the Weiss family.
Because I spent so much time at his home and was studying to be a part of the “damned liberal media,” I became the representative scapegoat Mr. Weiss would voice the complaints he had against all reporters who didn’t work for Fox News.
I can debate with the best of them. Even if I don’t know what I am talking about, I can usually put up a good front and make you mad as hell. But when it came to Mr. Weiss and media coverage, my very own specialty, I was cowed.
He was right.
CNN and the newspapers never report the positive things going on in the Middle East, he would say. What about the schools and the water treatment plants the soldiers are building? What about the children? What about….
At the time, I just took it all in and battled where I could. After all, the J-School was telling me Fox was nearly the Antichrist. Surely I couldn’t side with that news organization.
The Iraq War is one of the hottest and most unpopular topics in America right now and it is largely under reported. Dozens of media outlets cite safety as the No. 1 reason for lack of information; it is simply too dangerous to send reporters to the country and expect them to get accurate information. “The media’s vital role as eyewitness has been severely limited; the intimate narrative of victims, survivors and their persecutors is sorely lacking in places like Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to inflict havoc” (Ricchiardi, 28).
A sorely lacking, intimate narrative in just Anbar Province? I have yet to see an intimate narrative about the goings-on of the Iraq War on anything, anywhere. Maybe you have. But I haven’t.
The journalists that are embedded and reporting for the world public are focusing on the life of the country, or rather the death. The American Journalism Review complains that while journalists are left to sift through the propaganda and challenges, “…Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”
I believe the American public has a pretty good idea about the length and bloodiness of the war. Unfortunately, that’s the only picture they have.
In a March 2006 PBS program through the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer called “The Media and the Message,” the moderator discussed the issue of good news vs. bad news with two reputable sources. Robert Lichter, a journalism professor and president for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Michael Massing, the former executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, both agreed that what the media reports, is what the public sees.
The public doesn’t know anything but what we as journalists show them. If all we show them is death and destruction in Iraq, then that is of course what they are going to know and believe. President Bush even spoke about the terrorist manipulation of essentially distracting the media by blowing things up and wreaking havoc.
“If it’s a disservice to the American public, using the traditional criteria for news, to miss other things that are happening; I can’t be sure they are happening because I don't see them in the media,” Lichter said.
Granted, no place in Iraq is going to be a safe place for a journalist. But there are 18 total provinces in Iraq, and I know some of them have been designated as more secure than others.
There are stories to be told in Iraq; and they are tellable.
So children are scared to go to school? It’s interesting that one of the jobs of Americans in Iraq is to build schools where there were none at all.
So Americans in the Middle East are building water treatment facilities? Those had to come before plumbing and pipes could be installed — where there were none at all.
So there are heroes in this war? We wouldn’t know it if we had to rely on the media.
What about the mothers? What about the children? What about the soldiers? What about Baghdad, a former cultural hotspot of the world? Think of the troves of art that are lost. What about Hussein’s coffers of treasures? Are they gone? Looted?
And how about one of Yahoo’s latest Iraq stories? Buried at the bottom was the announcement of thousands of gallons of nitric acid found in a hidden weapons stockpile. It may not be WMDs, but ask Mr. Weiss what else the soldiers have found that the media doesn’t talk about.
Mr. Weiss could share stories that would make your heart truly ache. The stories were of soldiers doing their duty in a foreign country to a population of foreign people. He worked alongside the parents of currently deployed soldiers and among the soldiers themselves.
Those are the stories I want to hear. And if Mr. Weiss can know about them all the way here in Missouri, then I don’t understand why our reporters can’t find them, as well.
Sources:
PBS program transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/iraq_3-22.html#
Ricchiardi, Sherry. American Journalism Review. “Obstructed View.” April/May 2007, p. 26-33.
It was a predictable action for my then-boyfriend’s father. Mr. Weiss, a 1st Class Staff Sergeant, had retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of service. He then got a job testing weapons and other gadgets for a group that contracted with the military. He would spend several weekends a year reporting to military groups in Washington D.C. about the findings of the tests.
Mr. Weiss’ oldest son had spent a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the Marine Corps. He was sent home after sustaining minor injuries from a land mine.
The Iraq War was personal to the Weiss family.
Because I spent so much time at his home and was studying to be a part of the “damned liberal media,” I became the representative scapegoat Mr. Weiss would voice the complaints he had against all reporters who didn’t work for Fox News.
I can debate with the best of them. Even if I don’t know what I am talking about, I can usually put up a good front and make you mad as hell. But when it came to Mr. Weiss and media coverage, my very own specialty, I was cowed.
He was right.
CNN and the newspapers never report the positive things going on in the Middle East, he would say. What about the schools and the water treatment plants the soldiers are building? What about the children? What about….
At the time, I just took it all in and battled where I could. After all, the J-School was telling me Fox was nearly the Antichrist. Surely I couldn’t side with that news organization.
The Iraq War is one of the hottest and most unpopular topics in America right now and it is largely under reported. Dozens of media outlets cite safety as the No. 1 reason for lack of information; it is simply too dangerous to send reporters to the country and expect them to get accurate information. “The media’s vital role as eyewitness has been severely limited; the intimate narrative of victims, survivors and their persecutors is sorely lacking in places like Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to inflict havoc” (Ricchiardi, 28).
A sorely lacking, intimate narrative in just Anbar Province? I have yet to see an intimate narrative about the goings-on of the Iraq War on anything, anywhere. Maybe you have. But I haven’t.
The journalists that are embedded and reporting for the world public are focusing on the life of the country, or rather the death. The American Journalism Review complains that while journalists are left to sift through the propaganda and challenges, “…Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”
I believe the American public has a pretty good idea about the length and bloodiness of the war. Unfortunately, that’s the only picture they have.
In a March 2006 PBS program through the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer called “The Media and the Message,” the moderator discussed the issue of good news vs. bad news with two reputable sources. Robert Lichter, a journalism professor and president for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Michael Massing, the former executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, both agreed that what the media reports, is what the public sees.
The public doesn’t know anything but what we as journalists show them. If all we show them is death and destruction in Iraq, then that is of course what they are going to know and believe. President Bush even spoke about the terrorist manipulation of essentially distracting the media by blowing things up and wreaking havoc.
“If it’s a disservice to the American public, using the traditional criteria for news, to miss other things that are happening; I can’t be sure they are happening because I don't see them in the media,” Lichter said.
Granted, no place in Iraq is going to be a safe place for a journalist. But there are 18 total provinces in Iraq, and I know some of them have been designated as more secure than others.
There are stories to be told in Iraq; and they are tellable.
So children are scared to go to school? It’s interesting that one of the jobs of Americans in Iraq is to build schools where there were none at all.
So Americans in the Middle East are building water treatment facilities? Those had to come before plumbing and pipes could be installed — where there were none at all.
So there are heroes in this war? We wouldn’t know it if we had to rely on the media.
What about the mothers? What about the children? What about the soldiers? What about Baghdad, a former cultural hotspot of the world? Think of the troves of art that are lost. What about Hussein’s coffers of treasures? Are they gone? Looted?
And how about one of Yahoo’s latest Iraq stories? Buried at the bottom was the announcement of thousands of gallons of nitric acid found in a hidden weapons stockpile. It may not be WMDs, but ask Mr. Weiss what else the soldiers have found that the media doesn’t talk about.
Mr. Weiss could share stories that would make your heart truly ache. The stories were of soldiers doing their duty in a foreign country to a population of foreign people. He worked alongside the parents of currently deployed soldiers and among the soldiers themselves.
Those are the stories I want to hear. And if Mr. Weiss can know about them all the way here in Missouri, then I don’t understand why our reporters can’t find them, as well.
Sources:
PBS program transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/iraq_3-22.html#
Ricchiardi, Sherry. American Journalism Review. “Obstructed View.” April/May 2007, p. 26-33.
Blogs ftw
The comparisons to Columbine are inevitable. The words “Virginia Tech” are going to mean something to this generation. That meaning would be totally unique if we hadn’t had Columbine first. We may go down in history as the school shooting generation. We haven’t outgrown school violence. I wonder if there will be office place shootings when we are in our 30s.
One difference between Columbine and Virginia Tech for me was the complete ease in getting information this time around.
I first heard about it while we were sitting in this class, last week. An hour and fifteen minutes I met friends for lunch and pulled out my laptop, proud to be the first one to tell them what was going on. Before we separated for our respective classes we had the most up to date death toll, thought the gunman had been shot by police, knew that he was Asian and had watched the cell phone video three times. By the end of my next class I had witnessed the real-time online drama of the “gunman’s blog.” It only took a couple of hours for him to post that he has not the shooter.
By the next day I found myself arguing with my friend over the ethics of facebooking the dead, then doing it anyway. We had both already facebooked the killer, there was no debate there. That afternoon I read the first screenplay, a few hours later the second surfaced. That night I downloaded three studio-quality Virginia Tech tributes by various artists. They must have run to the studio to put them out so fast.
The interesting thing was the last place I always looked was a news organization’s Web site. I went to a blog, then to facebook, then a music sharing blog, back to blogs, most guiltily - to Wikipedia. The only time I looked at The New York Times or CNN.com was to see the death toll. That’s what I perceived the newspaper and cable news network to be best for. They weren’t reporting the hoax, facebook messages, or anything else I really wanted to see. In the next few days I would look to newspapers for information on the killer and victims, but it was mostly stuff I had heard before. I had to chuckle a little at an article in the New York Times discussing the online explosion of information surrounding the shooting. It covered everything I had already seen, the hoax, the screenplays, his “manifesto,” and a Wikipedia entry that could have put every journalist in America out of business. It was a well-written and interesting article, but it was 4 days late. The NBC editorial debate was an interesting juxtaposition to the blogosphere. Out in the ether of the people’s medium, every scrape of information was instantly available, with commentary and affiliate links. And all this was happening while NBC wondered how much information we, the public, could handle about Cho. I was so disappointed to visit nbc.com and find some measly “excerpt” and pixilated cuss-words. I felt like my quest for information had been halted – by journalists. I longed for bloggers who put it all out there and didn’t wonder what I could handle.
Maybe the “office place shooters” of the future will know to send their manifestos to The Smoking Gun or PostSecret.
One difference between Columbine and Virginia Tech for me was the complete ease in getting information this time around.
I first heard about it while we were sitting in this class, last week. An hour and fifteen minutes I met friends for lunch and pulled out my laptop, proud to be the first one to tell them what was going on. Before we separated for our respective classes we had the most up to date death toll, thought the gunman had been shot by police, knew that he was Asian and had watched the cell phone video three times. By the end of my next class I had witnessed the real-time online drama of the “gunman’s blog.” It only took a couple of hours for him to post that he has not the shooter.
By the next day I found myself arguing with my friend over the ethics of facebooking the dead, then doing it anyway. We had both already facebooked the killer, there was no debate there. That afternoon I read the first screenplay, a few hours later the second surfaced. That night I downloaded three studio-quality Virginia Tech tributes by various artists. They must have run to the studio to put them out so fast.
The interesting thing was the last place I always looked was a news organization’s Web site. I went to a blog, then to facebook, then a music sharing blog, back to blogs, most guiltily - to Wikipedia. The only time I looked at The New York Times or CNN.com was to see the death toll. That’s what I perceived the newspaper and cable news network to be best for. They weren’t reporting the hoax, facebook messages, or anything else I really wanted to see. In the next few days I would look to newspapers for information on the killer and victims, but it was mostly stuff I had heard before. I had to chuckle a little at an article in the New York Times discussing the online explosion of information surrounding the shooting. It covered everything I had already seen, the hoax, the screenplays, his “manifesto,” and a Wikipedia entry that could have put every journalist in America out of business. It was a well-written and interesting article, but it was 4 days late. The NBC editorial debate was an interesting juxtaposition to the blogosphere. Out in the ether of the people’s medium, every scrape of information was instantly available, with commentary and affiliate links. And all this was happening while NBC wondered how much information we, the public, could handle about Cho. I was so disappointed to visit nbc.com and find some measly “excerpt” and pixilated cuss-words. I felt like my quest for information had been halted – by journalists. I longed for bloggers who put it all out there and didn’t wonder what I could handle.
Maybe the “office place shooters” of the future will know to send their manifestos to The Smoking Gun or PostSecret.
Managing public perception, managing the media
Companies all over the world hire public relations firms to manage their corporate communications. Even small businesses have some kind of a spokesperson. But for some reason, I found it surprising that the U.S. Army has had contracts out for groups to handle public relations for the Iraq War.
It makes senses that companies with agendas, businesses that sell things and groups that disseminate a specific message to the public would need someone controlling the perception of that message. But the fact that this also is being done with the Iraq War is kind of scary, especially for the journalists charged with cutting through that to get the truth.
A Washington Post Article, written by Walter Pincus in August 2006 discussed a $20 million bid from U.S. military leaders in Baghdad “that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.”
The article goes on to say that the Bush administration didn’t like what the media was saying about the war. Therefore, the bid called for monitors, who would “analyze stories to determine the dissemination of key themes and messages along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.
Journalists are taught that it is their job to get the news and report information in a way that provides people with the tools needed to make their own decisions regarding the “tone” of a story. Journalists face a daily struggle in trying to keep biases out of their stories and maintain some objectivity so as not to mislead readers. But when the only information journalists can get to is already full of biases and has been managed and monitored to the point that the true news of the story is lost, it seems like reporters have few options.
The Washington Post story also said that a public relations firm, the Rendon Group, at the time, held a year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq.
James Bamford profiled the head of the group, John Rendon, for a Rolling Stone article in 2005, titled “The Man Who Sold the War.” With all the pro-war stories run in Rolling Stone, an article that takes a scathing look at the propaganda that sold the Iraq War is quite surprising.
But however left leaning the story may be, it raises some interesting questions about what the media can do when there is someone like Rendon who could be doing anything from managing the dissemination of information to flat out lying. It’s certainly admirable of those reporters who refuse to accept that and will do whatever necessary, likely in the case of the Iraq War, risk their lives, to get the truth. But with few journalists like that working today and an increasing number becoming discouraged by the fight they are up against, accurate coverage of the Iraq War is suffering.
Bamford quoted a speech Rendon gave at the U.S. Air Force Academy. “I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.”
These seem like several contradicting jobs. When a politician involved with the Iraq War also is working to get highly-designed messages out to the public about that war, there are going to be some problems with what information the media have access to.
As for Rendon being an information warrior, I’m not really sure what that is. But it sounds like something that should be left up to journalists. Whether it means fighting for accurate information or fighting to get the information out to the public, it doesn’t seem like someone such as Rendon, trained to manipulate information, should be the one to be doing the fighting. As for him being a perception manager – well, I never thought perceptions were supposed to be managed.
On top of all of this, the U.S. military contract that was awarded in 2006 went to the Lincoln Group, “a public relations company known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces,” according to a story from USA Today.
So the saga continues. While journalists may be partially to blame for less than thorough coverage of the war, it’s difficult to see many options reporters have when the U.S. government continues to practice tactics that prevent reporters from doing their jobs.
It makes senses that companies with agendas, businesses that sell things and groups that disseminate a specific message to the public would need someone controlling the perception of that message. But the fact that this also is being done with the Iraq War is kind of scary, especially for the journalists charged with cutting through that to get the truth.
A Washington Post Article, written by Walter Pincus in August 2006 discussed a $20 million bid from U.S. military leaders in Baghdad “that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.”
The article goes on to say that the Bush administration didn’t like what the media was saying about the war. Therefore, the bid called for monitors, who would “analyze stories to determine the dissemination of key themes and messages along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.
Journalists are taught that it is their job to get the news and report information in a way that provides people with the tools needed to make their own decisions regarding the “tone” of a story. Journalists face a daily struggle in trying to keep biases out of their stories and maintain some objectivity so as not to mislead readers. But when the only information journalists can get to is already full of biases and has been managed and monitored to the point that the true news of the story is lost, it seems like reporters have few options.
The Washington Post story also said that a public relations firm, the Rendon Group, at the time, held a year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq.
James Bamford profiled the head of the group, John Rendon, for a Rolling Stone article in 2005, titled “The Man Who Sold the War.” With all the pro-war stories run in Rolling Stone, an article that takes a scathing look at the propaganda that sold the Iraq War is quite surprising.
But however left leaning the story may be, it raises some interesting questions about what the media can do when there is someone like Rendon who could be doing anything from managing the dissemination of information to flat out lying. It’s certainly admirable of those reporters who refuse to accept that and will do whatever necessary, likely in the case of the Iraq War, risk their lives, to get the truth. But with few journalists like that working today and an increasing number becoming discouraged by the fight they are up against, accurate coverage of the Iraq War is suffering.
Bamford quoted a speech Rendon gave at the U.S. Air Force Academy. “I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.”
These seem like several contradicting jobs. When a politician involved with the Iraq War also is working to get highly-designed messages out to the public about that war, there are going to be some problems with what information the media have access to.
As for Rendon being an information warrior, I’m not really sure what that is. But it sounds like something that should be left up to journalists. Whether it means fighting for accurate information or fighting to get the information out to the public, it doesn’t seem like someone such as Rendon, trained to manipulate information, should be the one to be doing the fighting. As for him being a perception manager – well, I never thought perceptions were supposed to be managed.
On top of all of this, the U.S. military contract that was awarded in 2006 went to the Lincoln Group, “a public relations company known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces,” according to a story from USA Today.
So the saga continues. While journalists may be partially to blame for less than thorough coverage of the war, it’s difficult to see many options reporters have when the U.S. government continues to practice tactics that prevent reporters from doing their jobs.
The thinking inside the box
By Stephen Nellis
I take a sort of pride in not owning a television. Last week reminded me why.
Between murders at Virginia Tech on April 16, Cho Seung-Hui paused to mail off a package to NBC. It contained a multimedia manifesto.
But that’s puffing Cho’s video up a bit. It was really just the ramblings of a profoundly disturbed young man, a young man who sought to pin the blame for his rage on anyone or anything other than himself. No point, no value, no insight. Just adolescent sociopathology mixed with semi-automatic weapons and nothing to lose.
The only meaningful thing Cho’s package told us was that he wanted to be heard. And we can infer from his decision to mail his rant to NBC – a major network – that he wanted a large audience. He wanted a media spectacle, wall-to-wall coverage, all-Cho-all-the-time. In short, he wanted a national tragedy with his face on it.
And Mr. Cho got what he wanted. First NBC, and then other networks, aired the “Cho Show” on continuous loop beginning around 6 p.m. Wednesday of last week. The next morning, newspapers across the country ran still images taken from the video, mostly of Cho posing with his pistols pointed either at the camera or himself. Did you notice the nifty NBC logo in the corner of so many of those still images in the newspapers? Call it branding, I suppose.
Thank goodness for NBC. Now, each and every one of us who saw the images knows what it looked like to stare down the barrel of Cho’s pistol. And the families of those who died could see exactly what their loved ones might have seen before they were shot and killed. Boy, I bet those folks were thrilled.
I’m nonplussed at why NBC decided to air the footage or why newspapers decided to run images taken from it. Was it not incredibly obvious that having his rant slathered across airwaves and headlines was precisely what Cho wanted? Was it not equally obvious that the footage provided no useful insight into what happened and only served to further the grief and suffering of those who had already lost loved ones? And did we really need the American Psychiatric Association to tells us that airing the footage over and over might spur copycats?
The arguments I heard in favor of airing the footage were weak. And the people from whom I sought those arguments had plenty of experience and expertise: In the course of writing a Missourian story examining how some newspapers came to the decision to run images from Cho’s video, I interviewed Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute and our own Charles Davis.
Both argued that journalists are in the business of telling people what they know, not holding information back. Davis went further and asserted that seeing the footage could help viewers process a seemingly senseless tragedy, could help confirm people’s secret hope that this really was a random madman and that there really was nothing we could have done to prevent him. Both McBride and Davis agreed that NBC showed concern for the families of victims by carefully editing Cho’s blathering before airing it.
But neither Davis nor McBride put the question of whether to air the footage to what I would deem a careful analysis. I point this out not to say that their conclusions are flawed or their reasoning specious, but rather to say that I operate on different core beliefs about journalism.
Airing the video was sure to cause harm and suffering to the victims’ families and loved ones. But journalists are often called upon to cause harm and suffering when a greater public good is at stake, so this fact alone will not answer the question of whether the footage should air.
There are two other questions to be asked here: Who are the people who might be harmed by airing the footage? Would the good done by airing the footage outweigh the harm done by doing so?
The people likely to be harmed by airing the footage were those whose loved ones were killed. They were private individuals in a moment of profound vulnerability. They sought neither power nor fame and their private grief was now at the mercy of television cameras and microphones.
The distinction between power seekers and private individuals is important for journalists. Journalists are justified in examining those who have sought power, privilege and press time, but that justification does not necessarily extend universally. It’s one thing to expose the inveterately dishonest war-mongerers in the White House and another thing to mine the suffering of families involuntarily thrust into the spotlight by a deranged killer.
And what good could airing the video do? None whatsoever. It provides no insight into why Cho did what he did other than that he was a sociopath. (Was that in much question?) It provides no meaningful way forward. The only potential gain to be had was to reassure the public that Cho was simply a madman and that there was truly nothing we could have done to predict or prevent his killing spree.
However, it was unnecessary to air the video to provide the public with that information. The NBC news team could have simply explained the content of the video and then stated, “Because of the graphic content of Cho’s video and our desire to respect the grieving families of those killed, NBC has chosen not air the video itself.”
Because all the potential good accomplished by could have been achieved without airing it, we were, on balance, left with only the harm done by airing the footage. The families of those killed, still mired grief, anger and disbelief, were treated to looped footage of Cho waving his pistols in their faces. And the rest of us are still scared out of our wits, because we now know for certain we can never prevent another crime like this. No logic can stop a madman who is himself unbound by logic.
But I suppose there is one last potential benefit to running Cho’s rant that I failed to consider: the immense amount of cash media outlets garnered by feeding the public’s lurid curiosity and frothing desire for twisted tragedy.
I find it interesting that Davis and McBride’s ethics and core beliefs happen to systematically produce results also ripe with through-the-roof ratings and profits. It would of course be fallacious to assume any sort of causation when there is only correlation. And I’m sure Davis and McBride are well aware the tensions introduced by journalism’s classically “for-profit” nature.
I’m just as guilty of wanting to eat as the next aspiring reporter. But is this what happens when your paychecks are for too long signed by the Media Hydra, of which our blessed J-School is but a minor slithering head? Does it cloud the mind so?
I take a sort of pride in not owning a television. Last week reminded me why.
Between murders at Virginia Tech on April 16, Cho Seung-Hui paused to mail off a package to NBC. It contained a multimedia manifesto.
But that’s puffing Cho’s video up a bit. It was really just the ramblings of a profoundly disturbed young man, a young man who sought to pin the blame for his rage on anyone or anything other than himself. No point, no value, no insight. Just adolescent sociopathology mixed with semi-automatic weapons and nothing to lose.
The only meaningful thing Cho’s package told us was that he wanted to be heard. And we can infer from his decision to mail his rant to NBC – a major network – that he wanted a large audience. He wanted a media spectacle, wall-to-wall coverage, all-Cho-all-the-time. In short, he wanted a national tragedy with his face on it.
And Mr. Cho got what he wanted. First NBC, and then other networks, aired the “Cho Show” on continuous loop beginning around 6 p.m. Wednesday of last week. The next morning, newspapers across the country ran still images taken from the video, mostly of Cho posing with his pistols pointed either at the camera or himself. Did you notice the nifty NBC logo in the corner of so many of those still images in the newspapers? Call it branding, I suppose.
Thank goodness for NBC. Now, each and every one of us who saw the images knows what it looked like to stare down the barrel of Cho’s pistol. And the families of those who died could see exactly what their loved ones might have seen before they were shot and killed. Boy, I bet those folks were thrilled.
I’m nonplussed at why NBC decided to air the footage or why newspapers decided to run images taken from it. Was it not incredibly obvious that having his rant slathered across airwaves and headlines was precisely what Cho wanted? Was it not equally obvious that the footage provided no useful insight into what happened and only served to further the grief and suffering of those who had already lost loved ones? And did we really need the American Psychiatric Association to tells us that airing the footage over and over might spur copycats?
The arguments I heard in favor of airing the footage were weak. And the people from whom I sought those arguments had plenty of experience and expertise: In the course of writing a Missourian story examining how some newspapers came to the decision to run images from Cho’s video, I interviewed Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute and our own Charles Davis.
Both argued that journalists are in the business of telling people what they know, not holding information back. Davis went further and asserted that seeing the footage could help viewers process a seemingly senseless tragedy, could help confirm people’s secret hope that this really was a random madman and that there really was nothing we could have done to prevent him. Both McBride and Davis agreed that NBC showed concern for the families of victims by carefully editing Cho’s blathering before airing it.
But neither Davis nor McBride put the question of whether to air the footage to what I would deem a careful analysis. I point this out not to say that their conclusions are flawed or their reasoning specious, but rather to say that I operate on different core beliefs about journalism.
Airing the video was sure to cause harm and suffering to the victims’ families and loved ones. But journalists are often called upon to cause harm and suffering when a greater public good is at stake, so this fact alone will not answer the question of whether the footage should air.
There are two other questions to be asked here: Who are the people who might be harmed by airing the footage? Would the good done by airing the footage outweigh the harm done by doing so?
The people likely to be harmed by airing the footage were those whose loved ones were killed. They were private individuals in a moment of profound vulnerability. They sought neither power nor fame and their private grief was now at the mercy of television cameras and microphones.
The distinction between power seekers and private individuals is important for journalists. Journalists are justified in examining those who have sought power, privilege and press time, but that justification does not necessarily extend universally. It’s one thing to expose the inveterately dishonest war-mongerers in the White House and another thing to mine the suffering of families involuntarily thrust into the spotlight by a deranged killer.
And what good could airing the video do? None whatsoever. It provides no insight into why Cho did what he did other than that he was a sociopath. (Was that in much question?) It provides no meaningful way forward. The only potential gain to be had was to reassure the public that Cho was simply a madman and that there was truly nothing we could have done to predict or prevent his killing spree.
However, it was unnecessary to air the video to provide the public with that information. The NBC news team could have simply explained the content of the video and then stated, “Because of the graphic content of Cho’s video and our desire to respect the grieving families of those killed, NBC has chosen not air the video itself.”
Because all the potential good accomplished by could have been achieved without airing it, we were, on balance, left with only the harm done by airing the footage. The families of those killed, still mired grief, anger and disbelief, were treated to looped footage of Cho waving his pistols in their faces. And the rest of us are still scared out of our wits, because we now know for certain we can never prevent another crime like this. No logic can stop a madman who is himself unbound by logic.
But I suppose there is one last potential benefit to running Cho’s rant that I failed to consider: the immense amount of cash media outlets garnered by feeding the public’s lurid curiosity and frothing desire for twisted tragedy.
I find it interesting that Davis and McBride’s ethics and core beliefs happen to systematically produce results also ripe with through-the-roof ratings and profits. It would of course be fallacious to assume any sort of causation when there is only correlation. And I’m sure Davis and McBride are well aware the tensions introduced by journalism’s classically “for-profit” nature.
I’m just as guilty of wanting to eat as the next aspiring reporter. But is this what happens when your paychecks are for too long signed by the Media Hydra, of which our blessed J-School is but a minor slithering head? Does it cloud the mind so?
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