Media Tragedy
On the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, I heard about as many face-to-face discussions complaining about the news media’s reaction to the tragedy as I did about the killings themselves. As a former IDS writer and columnist, this troubles me.
I remember always being told in journalism classes that Journalists were second only to Lawyers in the public’s list of professional scumbags. But we as journalists never paused to ask ourselves why. All we have to do is look at the way we cover tragedies.
For example, I noticed IDS ran a localized story one day after the shootings, titled “IU reacts to Virginia shootings.” I understand that localizing a story is traditionally used to help relate a story to a local audience—to show why a story matters to them. And, in my opinion, the story accomplished just that. But many readers could also see localizing this story as a cheap attempt to cash in on the dead.
Granted, the IDS is probably the smallest offender, but this specific example illustrates a broad, endemic problem with the national journalism industry. Journalists have one idea of what “a job well done” is. In many cases—especially dealing with tragedy—the public’s idea of “a job well done” is something else entirely.
It also doesn’t help that the public holds the news media to a double-standard. The public accepts the media flocking around Paris Hilton, or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But they call it tacky to flock around a school shooting—even though the public probably discusses the shooting more than the celebrities.
It’s an open-ended problem, and I don’t know the solution. But if anyone is in a position to address it, it’s our nation’s journalists.