Comments on: Roger Ebert on how the press reports mass killings

By: Cory

Cory — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:42:00 +0000

There might not be an alternative, but if it is the case and the media really is one of the main factors here, you will never actually hear about it from the media. All you will hear about is all of their other scapegoats i.e. movies, video games, mental illness, guns. If you’re a young kid who is angry at the world and you’ve decided to kill yourself, what is more glamourous; going out in a whimper that won’t even be reported in your local newspaper or going out in a blaze of glory that will have Cee Lo and Taylor Swift singing songs about your carnage?

By: Jake Wasserman

Jake Wasserman — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 01:40:00 +0000

Unless it’s not a question of how different cultures produce different kinds of people, because they’re not acting on identical sets of blank slate un-nurtured humans.

Or, maybe different cultures acting on fairly similar distributions of un-nurtured humans produce different outcomes depending on how the fringe cases are handled, what they’re allowed to do, and what they can get their hands on.

Putting a finer point on it… Maybe these horrific incidents of individual mass violence stand out because we are succeeding in making our society less and less violent, and back in our more uniformly brutal past there were far more outlets for people with homicidal urges than there are today.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 18:53:00 +0000

It’s a false dilemma, which is indeed very popular among those who want to look clever but at the same time avoid any strenuous thinking.

One would have to be pretty shallow to conclude that appearing in one instance on Larry King is mutually exclusive to having one’s perspective played down in mass media.

By: lairdp

lairdp — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:53:00 +0000

No, in reality when you make guns and ammo harder to get, that reduces shootings. For example, after a horriffic school shooting in the UK in 1996 they put in place strict gun and ammunition controls, and there hasn’t been one since.

By: GlyphGryph

GlyphGryph — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 03:59:00 +0000

Is reporting about this sort of thing /really/ that important? Really for real? Is reporting in the way it gets reported that important? How are you defining important here. Because in my mind, “not encouraging future killers to kill people because we’ll give them what they want when they do” seems a hella lot more important than stroking our collective tragedy fascination.

By: AreinaFierce

AreinaFierce — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 03:11:00 +0000

Then maybe just some normal parenting and talking about it with your kids… Not arguing and fighting about it on the Internet.

By: Nora Miriam

Nora Miriam — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:27:00 +0000

On 2nd thought, this partly answers my question: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-simon/newtown-shooting-media_b_2311396.html

By: Nora Miriam

Nora Miriam — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:22:00 +0000

I have no idea whether Ebert is right or wrong, but I do wonder how else events like this should be covered. Its hard for me to imagine such big events not being given tremendous media coverage, because this is what people want to read/hear about right now. I’m not sure I see the alternative.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 02:09:00 +0000

Given the uneven laws state to state, some standardisation makes sense

By: John Irvine

John Irvine — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:05:00 +0000

No, lots of folks want current gun laws enforced, but there is a long-standing refrain from the gun lobby that enforcing current laws would be enough, and that no new regulations are needed. I say do both.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:05:00 +0000

So wow, I heard that Morgan Freeman said the same thing. Huh, I think there’s something going on here.

By: Ratz Asstime

Ratz Asstime — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:18:00 +0000

We’re neurotically inconsistent in our “enforcement” of gun laws. On one hand, we have loonies advocating that the whole country arm up in “self-defense” and on the other we’re adding substantial jail time for having used a gun in the commission of anything deemed a crime, including self-defense. In trying to have it both ways, all we’re succeeding in doing is removing responsibility from the manufacturers of weapons and the people who profit the most from the distraction.

By: Ratz Asstime

Ratz Asstime — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:16:00 +0000

That would be dramatically less true of the manufacturer of the gun would be held liable for the damage you did.

By: millie fink

millie fink — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 16:09:00 +0000

Ach! I can’t remember . . . what IS the name of this logical fallacy??

By: nashidar

nashidar — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 11:43:00 +0000

I also think Chris Rock had it right: we need bullet control. Make one bullet cost about $5000.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Right, because people don’t have personal computer, laptops, phones, all devices that can play streaming video of the news. Hiding things from children doesn’t work for long, at some point you have to teach them how painful the world can be, and how to deal with that without becoming numb or flipping out themselves. That(!) is parenting, not putting your kids in a bubble.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:28:00 +0000

Levels though. Video and audio are much more powerful than text.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:26:00 +0000

Some people have problems dealing with fantasy/reality, but that’s something that should be treated on an individual level, not by restricting society at large.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:24:00 +0000

You would have to find a way to force the media to internalise the externalities, somehow make it a cost to them if there was a copycat shooting

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:20:00 +0000

You say there is a problem, but we shouldn’t do anything about it, because other people have screwed things up.

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 10:12:00 +0000

Only NRA-types want the current laws enforced? Perhaps you should research the effect of fully-funding gun-trafficking laws, like they’ve done in Chicago in the past. They shut down dodgy gun dealers, made sure there were plenty of cops focusing on the problem, gun violence went way down. But the project ended, they didn’t keep funding the efforts, gun violence went back up again. If the number of cops focusing on a problem is static, making the laws more stringent won’t really change much.

By: Singe

Singe — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 08:41:00 +0000

How about novels and poems with guns and killing in them? Just as responsible as games and movies right? How about photographs of guns, too?

By: Adam Ruth

Adam Ruth — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 04:48:00 +0000

I remember Noam complaining about being shut out of corporate media while as a guest on Larry King.

By: Thebes42

Thebes42 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 04:02:00 +0000

I think that he really nailed what’s going on.
Also, it seems to me that with each shooting the mainstream media gives more attention to the new “bad guy” than they did to the last one.
I’m not suggesting that we ignore them, but if we stop giving 5 of the top 8 news slots to a pathetic thug who did kill, but killed no more than the drone strike last week, well- I think maybe they’d just do themselves intead of trying for a blaze of glory.

By: abstract_reg

abstract_reg — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 02:45:00 +0000

Your point is valid, but I’m not sure what the numbers are. In the past few years I can think of three mass shootings perpetrated by minorities in the United States. Virginia Tech, The D.C. sniper, and the Fort Hood shooting were all shootings committed by minority men. I can’t think of a single one committed by a woman regardless of race. Gender is definitely playing a factor here, I’m not certain ethnicity is.
We are in a time when “masculinity” is not a well defined term, and the things that are obviously masculine are often violent or at least very physical. Mind you, I like a violent video games and sports are a good way to keep in shape, but I worry that we live in a world that believes “girls are good at languages, boys are good at gym.” I have know idea what is going on in any criminal’s mind, but killing his own mother is not a sign of someone happy about his creation.

By: abstract_reg

abstract_reg — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Because, you know, mass killers are driven by trying to be cool and stuff.

By: Itsumishi

Itsumishi — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 01:45:00 +0000

As I’ve got a few mid-level drug dealer connections, I could probably, if I really wanted to, buy a pistol in Australia. However I’d have no say in what I purchased, it would almost certainly be a revolver and not an automatic. It would cost me a heck of a lot as the connection I’d be going through would want a premium, the next level up would want a premium, the level after that would want a premium, etc. I have no idea how many people would be in the supply chain. I’d guess that each connection in the supply chain would be likely to simply take the money and not supply the weapon, and I’d be the only one that lost out. I’m probably better connected than the average person due to a few of my school friends choosing illegal career paths which means they mingle frequently with numerous people that choose morally questionable lifestyles.

The tl:dr version:
I could possibly buy a gun for a heck of a lot of money, with considerable opportunity to lose the money and not get the product and it would take me at minimum a few weeks. Most Australian’s would find it harder and more expensive than I would.

Buying an automatic, semi automatic or pump-action would be a lot harder.

The reason, concealable guns and semi and fully automatic guns are highly restricted in Australia. As a result, for the most part the only criminals that have concealable or automatic weapons in Australia are organised criminals, these guys usually don’t use the weapons on anyone that isn’t also involved in organised crime (and cops, I suppose).

Since gun laws have become strict in Australia there haven’t been any mass shootings, there were however a number of these shootings before gun-laws were tightened.

By: Kevin Remisoski

Kevin Remisoski — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:59:00 +0000

All of us are bombarded with violent movies, tv shows, and news coverage as well as video games. I’m desensitized to such things and have been since the early 80s. Big deal. That doesn’t mean that I’m not a grown man and can’t make my own decisions. Also, I have no experience in killing a man, and there is a huge difference between being desensitized to violence and being desensitized to your own ability to kill someone. Before we were a civil race and were more barbaric, people cut each others heads off left and right for food, women, property, you name it. They didn’t have all of this exposure. So what changed? We have all of this exposure and we’re less violent? I’m sorry, but I fail to see the logic in your argument.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:13:00 +0000

My previous doctor worked in a clinic that had a television in the waiting room, always tuned to the Existential Horror Channel. I’m pretty sure that every patient showed high blood pressure when they were checked.

By: Rpg Depictions

Rpg Depictions — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:02:00 +0000

I don’t agree with ROGER EBERT…when you bombard people with violent movies, tv shows, news coverage and especially violent video games then they get desensitized…They are programed to see that violence is a normal thing…and so if someone goes nuts and starts shooting people out of the blue then it MUST be because part of the media bombardment whatever its source…