Gary Ledbetter, editor of the newspaper of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, has some important points to make about how news "coverage" can stimulate subsequent news happenings...in some cases leading to the most devestating of results.According to the Associated Press, the deranged man who murdered people at the Youth With A Mission center in Denver and then at New Life Church in Colorado Springs left a message, one apparently borrowed from the Columbine murderers. It makes me wonder again if our hunger for "news" doesn't encourage insane people to go out in a blaze of infamy.
The multitude of news sources has created a level of competition that encourages foolishness. If one service behaves more responsibly while another runs toward the salacious, it often turns out that the second service is seen as more "cutting edge" or "in-depth." The more responsible service loses money and the salacious one becomes an example for others to follow. Don't forget it is a business. Our hunger for the details of human tragedy has helped create a lot of places that will sate that hunger.
When something horrible happens, viewers want to know why. That's understandable. I doubt, though, that 24/7 coverage on Fox News ever really answers that question. Sure, we might learn that this person was rejected for a job or that person was beaten by his dad or this other person wanted to impress Jodie Foster, but those answers don't change much for the survivors, at least not for the sane ones. I believe we should give a little thought to what endless and detailed coverage does for the crazy ones, though.
Here's a clue: With increasing regularity, rampaging killers are leaving manifestos of some kind so that we might "understand" the viewpoint that made it necessary for them to murder strangers. They do this because it gives them a moment of fame they never could have attained by doing something constructive. And we eagerly give them their moment.
Let's stop that. Give the victims' names if that's important, give the location and even give the ultimate fate of the killer. Don't tell us anything about him, though. I don't care what he said about what he did. His statement is either the raving of a mad man or the pathetic scribblings of a suicide. I don't even need to know his name. More to the point, troubled people in waiting don't need to see that they can get their names in the paper by instigating tragedy...
The rest of Ledbetter's article is here. Note too that Dave Kopel, writing in the Rocky Mountain News, also had a compelling piece about this same problem. You can read that excellent column here. And, if you haven't already read it, Mona Charen's column was also spot on.
