When Journalism Gets Tricky!

Erica Westley
ew991515@ohio.edu

 Gun control and traumatic events are always a tricky subject for multiple reasons. As a journalist, it is important that you are sharing the full story of an event and being as transparent as possible to ensure that you can be a consistent, reliable source for the mass public. This, however, becomes a tricky situation when the incidents deal with a controversial/sensitive subject and involve a wide range of people. It can be extremely hard to decide what to do with the guilty and the events it could inspire after. As school shootings have started to become a “trend”, it is leaving people wondering how these matters should be handled and exactly what is the true problem here. Is it the guns? Kevin Freking, PBS NewsHour reporter's, article  “Obama says American’s must ‘come together’on gun crimes” as he discusses how terrible it is that families must mourn over a shooting in a place that is supposed to be safe and how we must come together in strong unity to figure out the best situation in dealing with guns. There also is another problem at hand: giving attention to the shooter. By doing this many police officials and journalist believe that many of the guilty people who commit this acts do this to get one final hurrah. It is as though anticipated news coverage is a way to really get their name out and get attention for committing these awful crimes. By not presenting the name of the guilty these people have high hopes that other potential crime committers will refrain from going forward with these acts when they see the shooter receives no attention.

 For the future there are other ways that people are trying to go about dealing with such horrific crimes. Is there a way to predict when someone is going to commit a heinous crime?  CNN’s article, “When will technology be able to predict crimes like theOregon shooting?” discusses how people are working on trying to predict if someone will commit crimes through online post. The trouble that comes with this research is that crimes are sometimes random events--predicting the future or the actions of another human being is a very challenging task.

 Crime is always going to be something that is hard to deal with and because of this how you report crime is vital. There is an additional element of sensitivity when the victims are vulnerable and have no idea of what is coming their way. It is important to think very carefully on how information is presented and the effects it has on others. These situations just goes to show the importance of news and why it’s crucial the people that give the news are morally and truthfully consistent with sharing information of all events and situations. News isn’t just sharing a story. There are many aspects and consequences that come with how you tell it and because of this you must try your best to tell these stories in the best way possible to receive the most positive results.