Today's Media and Crime

Emily Beekman
eb491810@ohio.edu

Traumatized by the Media

The media can be a cold, unsympathetic thing in time of tragedy.  The person or loved ones at the subject of devastation become a story, even dollar signs, in the eye of the storyteller.  I read about these media cases and feel angry and sad for the subject, just an innocent person affected at their highest point of vulnerability.  But, then, I think of why the media made them feel this way: to deliver the story to news and detail hungry people like myself.  I am the person that stares at the television sans blinking when tragedy hits. I am the person that the media intrudes into personal lives to deliver the news to.  Does this make me a bad person?  I would like to say no.  I think it makes me a product of our tech savvy, information-hungry generation.

Today’s Increasing Pressures

The first news of the Boston Marathon bombings came minutes, even seconds, after the event took place.  Immediately people pulled out their smart phones and tweeted, texted and posted photos to social media; they didn’t even know what had happened, but everyone had an initial assumption.  News outlets across the country then caught wind and started posting any information possible; they needed to get the story out first and didn’t necessarily have time to check all the facts, statistics, etc. 

This could be why crime stories aren’t as cutting edge as they were 10 years ago; now every story has relevance to a certain following and some are easier to gain credibility from than the stories covered by competing news stations.  When organizations are sharing news 30 times a day via Twitter, instead of only twice on the morning and evening news, the information does not have to be as cutting edge.

Source: Teach Thought

Making the Criminal Famous

Christopher Hanson’s article about murderers and how they are portrayed in the press poses an interesting point.  Many have realized that after the Newtown, Conn. shootings the culprit became a household name, but would we recognize the name of one of the innocent children or brave teachers killed if we heard it?  Does this mean that this man achieved what he wanted – attention and infamy?  It wouldn’t stop them all, but would blacking out the names, leaving the criminals of these tragedies anonymous, prevent similar instances from happening again?  

In this article from the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, the gunman’s identity had not yet technically been released, yet the majority of the story was still dramatizing the shooter’s lack of identity.  In both situations, it is not about the victims.  The infamy of the shooter is what sells, and I don’t see that changing in the future.