I just saw this tragic story on one of the local ‘newspaper’ sites. (I did edit some of it.) The last few lines are what got me.
What a fucking no-count piece-of-shit mongoloid insensitive mother fucker! One of ‘his’ citizens was so distraught that he performed an insanely irrational, final act. But dumbfuck Maturo is pissed because it was supposed to be a fun night. Boohoo, motherfucker!!! How fucking insensitive can you get? 'Sorry to ruin your fucking concert, you shitbag!
Is compassion dead? What about the families that have been dealt this horrible blow? How about the children (and adults) that witnessed this traumatic event?? [I’m sure that Mayor Dickweed was probably misquoted, and he may have actually addressed the tragic elements. If so, good – and the fucking media can get sucked back into hell, from whince they all came.]
Shit like this is portrayed in the media constantly, but people don’t realize that in real life, the credits don’t roll and the participants don’t just get up and go out for a drink.
HEY, ANY PIECE OF SHIT INVOLVED IN THE MEDIA!!! STOP GLAMOURIZING SHIT LIKE THIS!!! IF YOU STUPID FUCKS HAVEN’T NOTICED, YOU ARE SENDING A MESSAGE OF ENDORSEMENT TO COMMIT THESE ACTS TO PEOPLE WHO ARE FUCKING STUPID ENOUGH TO COMMIT THEM OR DISTRAUGHT ENOUGH TO COMMIT THEM!!! THIS SHIT IS NOT FUNNY!!! DOES ONE PERSON FROM EACH NEWSPAPER, TV STATION, RADIO STATION, MOVIE LOT, TELEVISION SHOW SET NEED TO HAVE THEIR FUCKING HEAD BLOWN OFF BY AN ACT LIKE THIS BEFORE YOU WILL FUCKING STOP??? I HOPE HITLER STOMPS ON YOUR FUCKING HEADS WHEN YOUR WORTHLESS EMPTY SOULS GET SENT TO HELL!!!
Hmmm . . . “The woman was seated in a lawn chair when the man walked up behind her and fired one shot into the back of her head. He then walked a short distance away and shot himself in the head.” Yeah, that sounds real glamourous.
So anything that appears in the news is now considered “endorsement”? So, like, if they report on the war in Chechnya, that’s endorsement to wage war? Have you always been this stupid, or did it just hit you this morning? Here’s a clue, fucko: If someone is this unbalanced, they’re going to do this whether they’ve seen it in the goddamned newspaper or not. You really don’t think violent personal crimes are the fault of the media. Tell me you don’t think that.
Duh. Doesn’t appear anybody’s laughing.
So crimes committed in the community are now not newsworthy. Especially ones committed in public. Check.
pldennison: I actually agree with you on this one (damn, what’s wrong with me?), albeit with a few qualifications.
The level of violence in the news is ridiculous. Reporting on the news is one thing, but many TV stations forgoe important news in favor of sensationalist news. For example, if you listen to NPR or read a newspaper, you generally get more in-depth coverage of real news.
That said, some of these acts of violence are certainly news-worthy, if gruesome. They are part of the news–and the news can be ugly.
Oh yeah and just for the sake of it: FUCKING NEWS STILL SUCKS. THOSE WASHED-OUT BLAND FACES ARE REALLY CREEPY!
No, not that anything should be kept out of the news, but must we truly see (hear, read) the most horrendous crimes as the ‘lead’ stories, all the time? This seems to be the only thing I can catch on the news if I just tune in at the top of the hour. I know exactly what phuquer is saying, they give so much attention to the worst of our society, you would thihhnk they make up 90% of our population. This stuff is really sensationalized too much, I and I have heard reports where the anchor goes from “three bloody bodies” to “the mayor cut the ribbon …” with same cheerfu tone.
People make that complaint all the time, trade, but here’s the thing: they’re lying. At least, taken as a whole they are.
The news is providing precisely what, according to the news ratings, the people watching it want to see. Nothing more, nothing less.
Take the case of WBBM-TV, in Chicago. Chicago is the third-largest TV market in the country, and generally gets high marks for its local news coverage. The station, however, felt that there was still too much celebrity news, fluff, and “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” news going on, so they decided to make their 10 p.m. newcast a hard-journalism, single-anchor, no-frills program. They were, at the time, the lowest-rated newscast in time, so they figured they would attract viewers by giving them exactly the kind of news they say they want.
I think you can guess what happened. As of May, their ratings were down 13 percent compared to the year before. The same thing has happened at stations across the country who have tried similar experiments.
While I think you have a point, your statistics do sort of ignore one aspect of the situation–many people who want quality news already get it from other sources–radio, newspaper, online sites, etc.
However, there is a point there–they are giving people what they want. If bleeding sells, well, it sells. On the other hand, sometimes TV is the only thing I can get, and it does annoy me to no end that the news is so bad. Still, I know that they’re only playing the game.
pldumbass - go fuck yourself back to Ohio, you fucking idiot.
You missed the fucking point (surprise!) in your quote post. I’ve got a minor in human psychology and in animal behavior, because these are subjects that have interested me, and shit like this touches on both. If you had any fucking sense, you would realize that exposing things like this in the media is glamourizing it. I didn’t think that that would be so hard to grasp. People do copy-cat shit all the time to get attention, since they see the attention that the original act got, and they long for that.
People who long for attention who happens to visit the SDMB may see trolls post idiotic things and get a lot of attention, so they do the same thing in the expectation of receiving that attention – they, too, become trolls. To someone like this, attention is positive, whether or not it is actually intended to be postive. You take someone who has a craving for attention, and just the right chemical imbalance, psychosis, anti-social behavior, and show that person a hyped-up 6 o’clock news murder, you may just get another Columbine. Didn’t you notice that there were a lot of school shootings, one right after the other. Do you really think that all of those school shootings were coincidental? If so, you can stop reading now and jump back on the short bus.
pl:
I never said that it causes violent crime. But, do you know what a fucking catalyst is? Add that to my statement above and see what you come up with. There are all kinds of people viewing this crap. I am assuming that you live a sheltered life and don’t understand that there are thousands and thousands of unbalanced, on-the-edge psychos out there, just waiting to go off and a way to do it. Just as you don’t show a potential pedophile child pornography, you don’t show potentially violent people real life violence getting the attention that it has been.
pl:
I guess the terms ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ mean nothing to you. Check, huh? Just because someone feeds your feeble mind this crap, you eat it up? Says a lot about you.
pl:
Duh, yourself, you fucking idiot. I was not implying humor.
Myrr21:
I agree with this to a degree, but is the news media absolved of any responsibility to the families of those involved, or the public? What if this situation involved your parents? Seriously mull that over before you answer. BTW, I should say that I am not talking about wars here.
pl:
Do you, pl, want or need or have a right to see grandpa blowing grandma’s head off? If so, you’re just part of the sick herd, and we might as well acknowledge that we will never see eye-to-eye on this. I am willing to listen to your side, though, just to learn, and see what I do not want to be.
I will give up my right to know that someone else’s grandpa went off the deep end if it is exchanged for compassion and maintenance of dignity for the family.
Yeah, and I’ve got a major in communications/media, so I win. Fucking moron. I’d get my money back if I were you, because you clearly have no goddamned idea what you’re talking about.
Exposing is glamourizing? Does that mean we should have kept the Holocaust a secret? Maybe we shouldn’t have reported when JFK was killed.
Sorry, but simply stating “exposure equals glamourization” is an assertion with no basis in fact, and is intellectually indefensible.
Wow, I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought. I can’t wait for publication of your masters thesis, “People do stuff.”
Why would anyone want to copy an act for which the attention was overwhelmingly negative, by the way?
First of all, no there were not, and even if there were, proximity in time is not correlation, let alone causation. Can you produce a quote by another school shooter who said, “I did it because of Columbine.” There are a couple of these every year. It’s hardly an outbreak, and there’s no evidence to show that any of them are caused by any of the others.
As a matter of fact, yes, and so does any reasonable person. I guess we know where that places you.
Say, how do you explain the school shootings that happened before Columbine? Precognition?
A fucking catalyst? I’ll guess it’s something that makes it easier to have sex. Like Ripple, or something.
There sure are. Hundreds of millions. And most of them, somewhere in the neighborhood of 95%, never kill anybody. Psychotics can be set off by a number of triggers. Hell, someone can simply say the wrong thing to them. Are you going to complain about talking, now?
Jeeee-zus. Everybody is potentially violent. Get a grip.
One can report the news without being disrespectful and undignified. Personally, I want to know if there are murderers in my goddamned neighborhood, just like I want to know if there are car thieves and rapists. You want to live in a box, be my guest.
Boy, you are really, really, really, really dumb. Let’s see if people who have more than a brain stem can follow the exchange:
You: This shit isn’t funny.
Me: Duh. Doesn’t appear anybody’s laughing.
Get it, jackass? Nobody’s laughing. You’re shaking your fist in the air at people at people who find this shit funny, when they don’t even exist. Christ, read your own posts if you aren’t going to read mine.
Yes, for pete’s sake. Haven’t you ever heard of personal responsibility? Grandpa is 100% culpable for this act, not Eyewitness News or the Assboink Dispatch.
“Mr. Dukakis, what if your wife was raped and murdered?” Christ, that was old then and its old now.
Oh, so now there were photos or TV coverage of this event? Are you going to change the story every ten minutes to try to make a point?
As far as a “right,” yep, violent crimes that occur in the community are perfectly valid topics for news coverage. You bet your ass they are.
Whatever, you fucking hypocritical sack of shit. There are impressionable kids reading this board, and you post with a name like “Mindfucker!” Why, they’re all going to start cursing!
Nothing you quoted from the story above is uncompassionate or undignified, unless perhaps you are the most oversensitive, straitlaced, blowing-shit-out-of-proportion, mentally retarded jackass who ever had the misfortune to live.
The other night we were watching Angel and during the commercial break a baby pops onto the screen. Baby has tubes and wires sticking out. Newsman says “Someone put this baby in a paper bag and left it in this parking lot” shows picture of lot. All this and more… THIS is a TEASER?
Now, I understand that the more people that know about this, the better the chances are of catching the human waste that did it. BUT! You can’t unsee this stuff, you know?
Poor baby, and then there’s my husband, JUMPing out of his chair :"WHY did they put that there? Augh! Now I have that visual stuck in my head! AAAAH those newsfucks AAAHHK!! "etc.
Perhaps this is what (sorta kinda) OP is pissed at. My 2 cents…
MYND, you are confusing apples and oranges here, and getting mad at the wrong party, and using a bad example to boot.
From the quotes that you list, three things happened, any one of which you could get pissed about:
The events happened, i.e., the guy shot his wife and then himself;
The mayor of the town makes a stupid, insensitive remark;
The media reports both the event and the remark.
Okay, I can see you getting ticked about No. 2. That was a really dumb thing to say. After the tragedy at Columbine, one of the senior students was quoted as saying, “this is just going to wreck graduation!” Same sort of stupid comment, only marginally excusable from a high school senior; totally inexcusable from a presumably media-savvy elected official. So you’re mad about that? Fine.
What I don’t see is how you translate that stupid remark into irresponsibility on the part of the media in reporting that the event occurred. It doesn’t appear as if the event was reported in sensational or “glamorized” language, or in a way calculated to hurt the family or those who witnessed the horrific occurrence. It’s just reported as occurring. So are you seriously arguing that reporting a violent event is the same as glamorizing it? Are you arguing that the media should self-censor and refrain from reporting incidents that might cause pain to a family or be latched onto by some copycat? Because that would be virtually every incidence of violence in society.
Which leads me to Saysha’s point, which is the the media is often guilty of glamorizing violence (both real-life violence and fictional violence) and sensationalistic reporting. I think you could work up a pretty good rant on that subject and people would be hard-pressed to argue with you. But if, as Saysha suggests, that was your original point, this is a poor example, because this incident doesn’t reflect irresponsible reporting or the glamorization of violence. Good point; bad example.
Saysha, TV is a visual medium. Without video, it may as well be radio; nobody wants to sit and watch someone simply read the news. If their choice of video is sometimes tasteless, I can’t argue with you there. But they rely on providing some kind of video, and it should, ideally, be something compelling. I mean, the baby didn’t do anything. It’s just laying there, suffering. Absent any context, a picture or video of it is just that–a picture. Maybe by showing this, it will shame someone else in a crisis pregnancy who was considering doing the same into taking a different path.
Besides, the OP was talking about a newspaper article. And a rather objective one, at that. He can’t decide whether he’s pissed at the mayor for saying what he said (which was almost CERTAINLY edited down from longer remarks) or at the newspaper for reporting it. He doesn’t even know what he’s mad at, so rather than blaming the perp, who he doesn’t have access to, he blames the easiest target: the media. And he concocts some half-baked theory of media culpability in violent crimes to justify his rant.
Jodi – you are correct. You were very eloquent in your post. I did rant and get off on a tangent. I was pissed at the time, and just wanted to sound off, and maybe get a little feedback. I didn’t know that I was going to do a dissertation defense.
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Myrr21 probably summed up a lot of my feelings on this (except the newspaper part):
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Jodi, thanks for your clarification. This example lead me to other examples that I didn’t put down. I didn’t really want to spend that much time on this. There were a lot of things going on in my head, and apparently only snippets of them came out. It was more of a stuttered stream of consciousness thing, I think. Thanks, again.
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The event was tragic. Every aspect of this event saddens me.
The mayor is a putz, in the way that it was reported.
If the editor was trying to get a rise out of me, it worked. I won’t be coming back for more. I’m sure that there are enough sick people to keep that paper going. I think that that situation gives a sad indication of the mentality of the masses.
It was in a different state – how does this concern me? There are more noteworthy events that happen every day. [Okay, did everyone learn not to let their grandpa get behind them at a concert? I sure did!]
What real value was there in printing this?
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And I am not blaming the media for the violence. If you can say that it is not responsible for any violence, then you should know that there have been case studies to prove otherwise.
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I think that some of the aspects of the story that I quoted sucked, and I didn’t want to sit back in silence. If you agree with me, good. If you don’t agree with me, good.
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pl - go fuck off. go show off your communications/media degree to your technical college sorority sisters, or your co-workers at McDonald’s. What does it take to get into that curriculum - an 840 SAT score? The only skill that you apparently learned was if someone says something that you disagree with, scream “no it’s not! no it’s not!” Good job, douche bag! Your mom must be so proud!
pl:
And behind the anonymity of a message board, quite sociopathic ‘stuff’, as is evident by your posts.
pl - you’re a pathetic pussy hiding behind your keyboard. if you’ve gotta work yourself up before you jack off, you should be ready blow. you’re welcome.
While I tend to agree with Phil that the news media provide a reflection rather than a dictum, Fucker is also right that sensationalism sucks ass. It won’t change–muckraking, bizarre and disgusting teasers, and alarmism are nothing new, however, and it won’t change anytime soon. Fucker, if you can find a way to change it, more power to you. I’ll just do what I can to avoid it and try to teach my friends and family to do the same.
With that conciliatory shit out of the way, I’m still laughing over this:
Regarding the OP, I’m up here on the fence with andros. Sure the schlock they cover on the evening news is right from the bottom of the barrel. But if most people wanted thoughtful balanced news coverage, we’d be up to our eyebrows in it. I guess most people like it sleazy.
But overall I harbor a healthy contempt for news fucks and would never speak to one in a professional capacity. That’s because I know that if my sainted aunt was captured by Manson Family II, tortured horribly for 43 days in a cellar, and slowly murdered with a chain saw, the evening news droid would be wearing that same vacant plastic smirk while cheerfuly describing it all in gory detail. And then crash the funeral and shove a mike in my face to ask me how I felt. And then sue me when I shoved that $70,000 camera straight up their ass still running.
And an equal number that contradict them. I’m prepared to cite real names and numbers, are you?
I don’t know where you work, pussy boy, but I can assure you I make enough to buy you and your entire inbred goat-fucking white trash family and sell them to white slavers at a tidy profit. And I can trump your minors with economics and political science, too.
You wanna compare dick sizes, metaphorical or otherwise, I’m game, but be prepared to be laughed at.
Sorry, dicksmack, but I confronted you with facts. If you can’t handle them, that’s your fucking problem. I haven’t seen you accurately contradict a single thing I’ve posted in this thread, but you go right ahead and retreat and declare victory. If it makes you king in your own mind, more power to you. Apparently you need all the self-esteem boosting you can get.
Right. I’m a sociopath. Hell, you know my real name, my wife’s real name, and roughly where we live. Several Dopers know me IRL. If you think that’s “anonymous,” you’re even dumber than I thought. But when you’re ready to meet IRL, bring it on. I can hardly wait.
Gee, Falcon said exactly the same thing when she had dinner at my house. :rolleyes: Oh, and RTFirefly said something to that effect when we went to a concert together last weekend.
Go to hell, you self-important cocksucker. You’re incapable of putting one and one together to get two. Christ, you couldn’t put two ideas together in a logical chain if I spotted you one, you shit-eating mental midget.
Now, on to people capable of reasoned thought:
For the record, folks, modern news coverage of tragic and violent stories has nothing on the kind of outrageous, sensational, lurid shit that was published from the latter part of the 19th century up through about the 20s and 30s. Today’s stuff is downright restrained, although the subject matter has broadened.
There was a book published lasy tear called Don’t Shoot the Messenger, by Bruce Sanford, a lawyer who represents media clients. It addresses this topic at length, and describes a love-hate relationship between the public and the media dating back over a hundred years. The public always makes these same complaints, yet always flocks to the most sensational stories and the msot sensational coverage.
As far as media violence is concerned, any definite link between exposure to media violence and violent behavior remains elusive. Many of the studies that have been conducted are deeply flawed, relying on self-reported behavior, arbitrary definitions of “violent behavior,” and a lack of context for the behavior that is exhibited. Furthermore, there are so many environmental factors that controlling for them is nearly impossible, including parental involvement and environmental stress.
You want to get pissed? Get pissed about the actual murderers. Don’t get pissed about the people who tell you who they are.
Let me just point out now that I agree with pldennison on everything he has ever said, is saying here, and ever will say. Even if he contradicts himself. I just want to leave my will to live intact. Absolutely fucking amazing work in this thread, Phil, even in relation to your usual high standards.
Although I must admit I was was originally inclined to agree with the OP, because he wrote in all caps, and anything that’s written in all caps must be true.
First things first: Against my better judgement, I’m going to apologize to Myndephuquer for my comments in my post last night. He made the OP, I responded, with the worst comments being “Have you always been this stupid?” and “fucko,” and he decided to make it reallypersonal. I should be strong enough to not respond in kind.
On the other hand, if someone can not handle being disagreed with on the SDMB in general and the pit in particular, they should not be posting here at all. This isn’t a place for people to chime in and say, “Yeah!” all the time; this is the Straight Dope, and here we deal in facts. Also, psychologists will tell you that you should never identify yourself so strongly with your arguments and opinions that they become you, so that an attack on your arguments become an attack on you.
So here’s an olive branch, Mynde, take it if you will.
Now, going back to square one on this thing . . .
The news media serve a purpose; there’s no denying that. They serve to provide information about events in the community that are of importance to the people in that community (“community” being anything from your small home town to the entire world). Who decided what’s “important”? Well, the consumers do–the viewers, the readers, and the listeners. An outlet which fails to provide news of interest will, ultimately, not be in business very long.
Aside from that, the media serve an important purpose when a tragic event occurs. Beyond providing the five W’s, they attempt to provide context and commentary. When tragedy strikes in a community, the media can help the survivors as they explore the questions, “Why did this happen? And why here, to these people?”
In doing so, reporters must tread a sometimes difficult ethical line, providing the public with the necessary details and helping them to deal with the emotional impact. (The reporting quoted in the OP was some of the most sober I’ve seen in relating an event of this nature.) Often, that involved talking to the victims and the families of the victims, and they must try to do so being simultaenously sensitive and uninvasive but persistent. It’s a difficult process, but remember, everyone’s idea of how the media behaves under these circumstances is probably itself a stereotype created by media. You always, always have the right to tell them you don’t want to speak to them.
As far as violence and the media go, newspaper are barely ever a factor in these things. TV and movies are usually the victims of these broadsides. And the fact is, aside from isolated (notable only because they are isolated–we heard of 1 copycat “Money Train” crime, but did we hear of any more than that?) copycat crimes, there are not widespread outbreaks of violence as a result of televised or projected images of violence. And as far as increased aggressive behavior in individuals, along with the flaws I mentioned in the previous post, there have never been long-term time-series studies conducted which examine changes in behavior over a period of time vis a vis exposure to media violence.
Anecdotes prove nothing. On the one hand, some teens in the U.K. were arrested last month for killing a boy while recreating the ear-slicing scene from “Reservoir Dogs.” On the other hand, “Reservoir Dogs” was seen by several hundred thousandpeople, so one incident hardly constitutes an epidemic. Hell, I’ve been a fan of the most atrocious, gore-filled splatter movies all my life, and while you may arguably say I’m aggressive, I’ve never been in a fight, never laid a finger on another human being in anger. We can extrapolate nothing from individual cases to the larger issue.
Media ethics is a complicated field, with volumes and volumes of both critical work and theory as well as case law. Let’s not reduce it to a single stereotype of the pushy, amoral reporter. That doesn’t come anywhere near telling the whole story.
From where I sit, pldennison blew your every argument out of the water. Pointed out the intellectual vaccum behind basically everything you said. Challenged you to back up your idiocy, and you shrank like a violet.
What’s life like in that fantasy world you live in? Are you president? King?
And what, exactly, do you do for a living, flea-felcher? I can’t wait to hear this. Let me guess! I bet it involves making gross generalizations and psuedo-intellectual statements without any basis in fact to back it up. Psychologist? Sociologist? Political Action Committee member for the Democratic Party?
What was the media thinking? Gee, let’s see. A guy walks into a park full of people, shoots one in the back of the head and then himself. How irresponsible of the media to think anyone would have any interest in knowing about that.
The mayor of said community makes a completely insensitive comment, showing he’s more worried about the integrity of his little chamber of commerce event than he is the people involved in the tragedy. How irresponsible of the media to think anyone would have any interest in knowing about that.
As has been pointed out to you time and time again in this thread, your hurt feelings or holier-than-thou outrage over coverage of this type of thing is a small price to pay. The alternative, taken to the extreme, would mean things people must know don’t get a public airing, because people who know what’s best for us say they shouldn’t. The fact that you don’t seem to grasp this point in the slightest shows a disturbing level of ignorance.
Why would this have any relevance in your paper, several states away? I’m not sure that it does. Why do local television newscasts lead with the sensational footage of some guy burning to death on the other side of the country? I’m not sure. Good arguments could be made that this is gratuituous and sensationalist (although coverage in the pertinent localities is certainly justifiable).
Unfortunately, Mind-fucker, the above wasn’t your argument. Instead you thought with your spinal cord and said what you said.