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“When it comes to covering mass shootings and gun violence, we want to emphasize the victims, we want to tell the stories of the community, and recovery, and re
by zachguo 7y ago
“When it comes to covering mass shootings and gun violence, we want to emphasize the victims, we want to tell the stories of the community, and recovery, and resilience, rather than focusing on the perpetrator.”
This is the solution proposed in the article.
- mark-r 7y agoThey are hardly the first to make this suggestion. Is there anything novel proposed here?
- outworlder 7y ago> They are hardly the first to make this suggestion. Is there anything novel proposed here? It doesn't have to be _novel_ . This has to be repeated until it sticks. Much like the way the media nowadays doesn't publish suicides much – in many cases, the cause of death is not even mentioned, to avoid copycats.
- mark-r 7y agoIf it's not novel, then it's not likely to have any impact larger than the ones that came before.
- edmundsauto 7y agoDepends on how that particular message saturates in people's minds. It may have diminishing returns up to a point, but then repeated exposures have positive nonlinear compounding. Mass communication is all about simple, repeated messaging.
- taborj 7y agoThere's nothing novel about sexual situations on TV, either, yet by repeating it throughout the years it's become normalized, to the point that nobody even thinks about it anymore. This is how this works: have a controversial point, repeat it in as many places as possible until it becomes normal.
- godelski 7y agoWhat's funny is that this has been said for at least a decade. In fact I remember last year NPR talking about it like a month after a shooting. Then a few days later another shooting happened and they didn't follow their own advice. I'm not trying to single out NPR, because I've seen many organizations do this. It's just at this point that this kind of reporting feels more like virtue signaling because when it comes time to actually report on a mass shooting they don't even follow what they claim is best practices.
- hirundo 7y agoTwo channels, one showing a story of a victim, another of the perp. I'll watch the perp, because their story is more relevant to me. I might learn about how they select their victims, or some detail about how it could have been prevented, something I could get behind. Maybe I can at least salve my psychic pain by categorizing the murderer and so feeling a measure of control over the chaos. But when I watch the victim I just get to relive the horror from my own life and so many past media circuses. My own experience is that I don't get a lot of motivation from wallowing in that kind of loss. I want to know why, and the perpetrator has more to tell about that than the victims.
- imtringued 7y agoWatching the perpetrator will also tell you how to be a better one. Innocent people get swatted and killed meanwhile with just this weird trick you can take the lives of many people and your reward will be a warm meal in a prison.
- taborj 7y agoThere's nothing preventing the 'victim' channel providing information on how not to be a victim; in fact, that seems a natural fit. Further, the 'victim' channel should be more a celebration of the goodness that was removed from the world, thus inspiring others to go out and do more good. But it's all academic; the news channels would never abandon their "if it bleeds it leads" mentality. It's far too profitable, because ultimately humanity is (in general) voyeuristic.