The Media Circus?
I was intrigued by several points made in the discussion on NPR's Talk of the Nation program yesterday (19 Dec), "What The Media Got Wrong In The Newtown Story" (link). The main points to me were:
1. The way the media got facts wrong in the hours after this calamity is not a symptom of modern recklessness driven by the proliferation of cable TV channels or the millions of amateurish Internet "news" sites. For example, in this case the media spent much of the first day naming the true killer's brother as the murderer. Similarly, after the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan in 1981, all the major TV networks (all three of them at the time) reported that Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, had died. Brady, though paralyzed by the shooting, is still alive and active today.
2. We consumers bear responsibility-- to understand the weaknesses inherent in the process, not to shoulder the blame for it. When we demand real time information as significant events unfold, we must understand that even trusted media are giving us merely a good faith effort. They are reporting the situation as they best understand it at the moment. It's possible that some of the "facts" stated initially will be revised later.
2a. We must keep our minds open as sometimes these revisions come much, much later. The program's guest made the point that 10 years after the Columbine shooting tragedy, most of the public still understands it as "Two boys who were bullied at school lashed out homicidally against the jocks and popular girls who tormented them." The facts don't actually support that explanation, but it provides a narrative so plausible and compelling that it remains. I admit I subscribed to that narrative until yesterday; today I hold it in question until I can study it more.
1. The way the media got facts wrong in the hours after this calamity is not a symptom of modern recklessness driven by the proliferation of cable TV channels or the millions of amateurish Internet "news" sites. For example, in this case the media spent much of the first day naming the true killer's brother as the murderer. Similarly, after the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan in 1981, all the major TV networks (all three of them at the time) reported that Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, had died. Brady, though paralyzed by the shooting, is still alive and active today.
2. We consumers bear responsibility-- to understand the weaknesses inherent in the process, not to shoulder the blame for it. When we demand real time information as significant events unfold, we must understand that even trusted media are giving us merely a good faith effort. They are reporting the situation as they best understand it at the moment. It's possible that some of the "facts" stated initially will be revised later.
2a. We must keep our minds open as sometimes these revisions come much, much later. The program's guest made the point that 10 years after the Columbine shooting tragedy, most of the public still understands it as "Two boys who were bullied at school lashed out homicidally against the jocks and popular girls who tormented them." The facts don't actually support that explanation, but it provides a narrative so plausible and compelling that it remains. I admit I subscribed to that narrative until yesterday; today I hold it in question until I can study it more.