Gunmen in the news

SUCH A terrible subject for this blog to take up at the start of the year! Of course, there are other issues—but this one has taken hold of the mind and the mood, as only senseless killing does, as only the deaths of children can do. Before interest in the issue wanes, or is pushed to the margins by the upcoming political campaign, let’s talk about gunmen in the news.

Yes, there are gunmen and gunmen and the killing of a human being, or the massacre of many must be recorded and carefully investigated as a case on its own. The implications are obvious for media coverage, even if these are not quite crystal clear.

I am not ready to consider a specific protocol on reporting random mass violence, such as the tragedy which struck the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December, and the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado in July. Too soon it seemed to anyone trying to think on the momentum of violence, a Filipino, in Kawit, Cavite, went on a shooting rampage, killing at least seven and wounding others, including children. The death toll in each varied, but each case caused senseless loss of lives and there seems no point in measuring the lesser grief or the greater sorrow.

But the chain of violence begs for some media introspection to consider the impact of media coverage of these killings.

The reports and commentary in the international press point to the need for more regulation in the sale of guns, and limits to the sale of automatic weaponry in the US (United States) where a strong lobby by the NRA (National Rifle Association) with support of their political kindred has prevented stricter laws. Some commentary on cases in the past also raised the need to connect the easy access to guns to aspects of American life that seem to contribute to such sociopathic violence.

Much less has been said about the effect of the glorification of guns and violence in the entertainment media, movies and features that celebrate the personal capacity to shoot at targets and to create mayhem with deadly weapons.

Still much less comment has been recorded on the impact of news media today, the pervasiveness of the repetitive cycles of 24/7 news, the resulting media saturation which embed the public mind and consciousness with images of victims and suspects, creating more drama when none is no longer needed. Other journalists follow the imperative of the craft to search out more information about the killer, fleshing out a profile which would have never been rated as newsworthy before he had done the heinous deed. So we are told he was estranged, he had no friends, he was a loner, he was abandoned by spouse.

I have noted how audiences now demand to be brought into the process of searching out the news live. Unfortunately, the inaccuracies in the early stages of reporting hold for a bit longer than journalists would like as many viewers and listeners turn from this news to other activities, not ever noting the corrections made in the process. Perversely, the journalistic sense of duty to inform, to give as much information as available to help the public understand as much of the story as possible can result in mis-information and profound mis-understanding.

Journalists do pride themselves in having this unique assignment, to give the news and information, so the public, the world will know.

I am not sure that journalism by itself is equipped to make such profound tragedies truly understandable; or that news stories can help Americans understand why such random mass killings occur more in the US than in any other developed society in the West and so assist in the prevention of such crimes. These must be taken up by other experts, other disciplines; and journalists should do their part in making these expert findings understandable.

But the press has much to think about as it considers the unprecedented impact of media in an age of media saturation.

It would be logical for so much media to foster a growing hunger out there to be known.

In a convention of readers of the magazine Cosmopolitan, a question asking the audience of readers to guess what was on top of things desired by young women, fame came first. Not “beauty, an amazing career, riches” Okay, that may be true only of Cosmo readers. But the fixation on social media connectivity, the high numbers desired as FB (Facebook) friends, the self-exposure on YouTube reveal the need to be known if only within one’s group in social media.

Not universal but pervasive enough. The traditional aspirations for wealth, beauty, and power combine with something else, a desire to be in the news. There may be more studies out there that can help us understand the deep crisis of identity that afflicts a generation addicted to media of all kinds, for whom media becomes the source of connection a well as their affirmation.

This widespread desire for fame must be better understood, one thinks, by the community that provides the ordinary person, their share of the limelight and the brief moment in the news that enhances their sense of life and its meaning.