I wrote this material in reply to an e-mail I received Saturday morning, as my colleagues and I were closing a semester and coping with the news from Newtown. My comments about gun violence, weapons fetishism, and the like are elsewhere, not hard to find. I write here about the media. I have made a few editorial changes from my original e-mail.
Good morning, everyone. I am on campus—I got here early, thinking I would get some writing in before attending the convocation, where I will be editing an article while the names get called out. I will be in DJ mode there, the way I used to work in my hometown country station, listening just enough to catch the cue for the next action. In this case, rather than waiting for a song’s end before starting the next track, I will kind of wait for student’s names I recognize to see them walk with the empty diploma holder in hand.
Last night, Middlekid took a field trip to Knoxville to hear a symphony concert of Christmas music. His band teacher made the arrangements. At home, Firstkid took over one of the couches and stayed online while Dotter watched a newly-released director’s cut of Little Shop of Horrors. In this original version of the musical, not widely released because it tested poorly with contemporary audiences, the heroes die near the end, before the giant alien carnivorous plants take over the entire world to doo-wop-influenced eighties synth. Betterhalf worked until 8:00, because her company installed new programming, and she along with two other women were getting all the files straight so doctors and health providers in the area could get paid as they should.
This morning, while on campus, I checked. Our Department of Communication does offer a course in journalistic ethics. It is a sophomore-level class.
Over the past day, I have seen nationally renowned networks place seven-year-olds on television to discuss hearing shots. I have read how the networks got the name of a suspect wrong, sending the misinformation out globally before getting the information right, and completely misrepresenting the shooter's first victim, his mother, and her relationship to the attacked elementary school. At least one journalist started approaching relatives of victims through direct messaging them on Twitter; someone called the grandmother of the shooter to ask her what she thought before she had gotten official word of the incident; the estranged father of the shooter was ambushed with a microphone, completely oblivious to the reason why until the “reporter” shoved the microphone on his face. Opinions of people on the street are everywhere, and, of course, to preserve themes, some of them are even saying that somehow the shootings are more horrible because they have occurred during a holiday season, as if it would be better had it occurred in August.
These are the networks who, in their rush to be first, told us that in the Sago Mine disaster, only one person had died and the rest of the trapped miners had survived, when it was the other way around. These were the networks who prematurely reported that the Supreme Court had determined that the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, when the findings were the exact opposite. These are the networks who declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 election, networks that accepted the notion of “embedded” reporters without fully considering that embedding reporters means that someone is controlling their access to events, networks that were considered heroic when they were doing their jobs by showing the neglected atrocities of Katrina’s aftermath, night after night for almost a month. These are the networks that devote hour upon hour to pundits and commentators because, even when a newsworthy event occurs, the rush to get footage on the air conflicts directly with the need to digest the information, check it for accuracy, and explain what has happened. They apparently feel pressured to rush content, because anyone with a webcam can offer opinion, too, ranging from the distressed call for everyone to love everyone else to the declaration that we should put concealed weapons on kindergarten teachers to prevent situations like yesterday’s from happening in the future. The internet makes it possible to find someone in agreement with just about every opinion imaginable.
And, to top it off, yesterday Rupert Murdoch was communicating his dismay. Since he owns Fox News, perhaps he could exercise some editorial direction and influence that network’s take on the events. Because, after all, in a world where we are quick to blame a couple of Australian shock jocks for causing a British nurse’s suicide with a telephone prank, perhaps even a global media magnate could consider that airing inflammatory viewpoints for profit and political sway could contribute to a climate where horrors become a part of the new normal.
One of my colleagues noted that one of his mythology students was dismissive of the course content because those gods are "not real, anyway," while my colleague had attempted to demonstrate that those unexplainable forces still exist, that our human impulse to embody explanations persists. In the wake of this heart-rending incident, many commentators were quick to refer to the shooter as "pure evil," participating in that cycle of attempting to put a face on a combination of factors difficult to weigh, measure, and confront. Sometimes the resonance of a story, especially as it gets repeated in various forms, does not become immediately apparent. Only rarely have I seen immediate effect from whatever I accomplish in a classroom.
I’m heading over to an event filled with hope and relief. It’s time for convocation.
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