Post by maruf on Mar 26, 2005 3:42:36 GMT -5
"Inexplicable" Violence?
The Press Ignores Social Causes of Minnesota Shooting
In today's New York Times, Kirk Johnson writes: "The violence that ripped through Red Lake High, on the reservation of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, will probably always be on some level inexplicable."
Perhaps Mr. Johnson, in his search for explanations, could look within his own sentence. Instead, the Times did not print a word about the poverty and despair commonplace on the modern reservation.
Overall, the social realities related to life on the reservation have been largely ignored by the press, who prefer to continue insisting that "the violence" is "inexplicable." Instead, they focus on Weise's internet use and interest in Nazism.
Despite noting that the shooting occurred in "one of the poorest counties" in Minnesota, ABC Nightly News left it at that in their one story this week (3/23/05). They jumped around from the fact that the school had metal detectors to the poverty of the county to how sad people were, in less than 50 words time. ABC called Weise "a lone and troubled killer" and gave about 100 words to his postings on a neo-Nazi website.
The CBS Evening News' March 23rd story was a little better than ABC, noting the "worries, more public than ever, about the effects of Red Lake's culture of poverty" on reservation children. Yet they didn't pose the "culture of poverty" as an answer to Weise's aunt, who claimed: "We don't know what went on. We'll never know. We'll always ask the question 'Why'?"
NBC Nightly News devoted much more time than CBS & ABC to the violence in Minnesota, but they didn't delve much deeper into the social root causes.
Instead, in their March 24th report, they chose to focus on "the portrait...of the young man behind the shootings," a portrait that included the facts that he once gelled his hair in the shape of horns (a fairly popular countercultural youth hairstyle), took Prozac (since 1988, 22 million people have taken this drug), wrote on neo-Nazi websites, and made a "violent animation."
In one of their March 23rd reports, NBC did at least discuss Weise's troubled family background, something the other networks neglected (his father committed suicide and his mother's brain was severely damaged in a car crash, which put in motion his being sent to the reservation). But, no surprise, they kept it personal, noting that Hitler was Weise's "hero" and that he wore the spiked hair. NBC doesn't talk about how his family problems caused him to essentially fall through the holes in the social net, holes that have become larger and are still growing under the Bush administration.
I suppose this isn't all that surprising for a press that buys into the Horatio Alger myth; one of the greatest American myths of all time. If they don't believe that social classes and inequalities exist, how could the press ever use them as tools to help explain to the public why crime occurs?
Much as the Columbine shootings were blamed on the media (specifically targeting people like Marilyn Manson), this case looks like it will be just the latest installment in everyone's favorite game show, "Blame the Media for Youth Violence." I agree the media should be blamed, but not in the way that it is being blamed. The media, by ignoring these issues of social class and failing to explore root causes of social problems, is failing in its duty to help readers and viewers understand the world. If we don't understand these causes, we can't fight against them.
And the cycle continues.
The Press Ignores Social Causes of Minnesota Shooting
In today's New York Times, Kirk Johnson writes: "The violence that ripped through Red Lake High, on the reservation of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, will probably always be on some level inexplicable."
Perhaps Mr. Johnson, in his search for explanations, could look within his own sentence. Instead, the Times did not print a word about the poverty and despair commonplace on the modern reservation.
Overall, the social realities related to life on the reservation have been largely ignored by the press, who prefer to continue insisting that "the violence" is "inexplicable." Instead, they focus on Weise's internet use and interest in Nazism.
Despite noting that the shooting occurred in "one of the poorest counties" in Minnesota, ABC Nightly News left it at that in their one story this week (3/23/05). They jumped around from the fact that the school had metal detectors to the poverty of the county to how sad people were, in less than 50 words time. ABC called Weise "a lone and troubled killer" and gave about 100 words to his postings on a neo-Nazi website.
The CBS Evening News' March 23rd story was a little better than ABC, noting the "worries, more public than ever, about the effects of Red Lake's culture of poverty" on reservation children. Yet they didn't pose the "culture of poverty" as an answer to Weise's aunt, who claimed: "We don't know what went on. We'll never know. We'll always ask the question 'Why'?"
NBC Nightly News devoted much more time than CBS & ABC to the violence in Minnesota, but they didn't delve much deeper into the social root causes.
Instead, in their March 24th report, they chose to focus on "the portrait...of the young man behind the shootings," a portrait that included the facts that he once gelled his hair in the shape of horns (a fairly popular countercultural youth hairstyle), took Prozac (since 1988, 22 million people have taken this drug), wrote on neo-Nazi websites, and made a "violent animation."
In one of their March 23rd reports, NBC did at least discuss Weise's troubled family background, something the other networks neglected (his father committed suicide and his mother's brain was severely damaged in a car crash, which put in motion his being sent to the reservation). But, no surprise, they kept it personal, noting that Hitler was Weise's "hero" and that he wore the spiked hair. NBC doesn't talk about how his family problems caused him to essentially fall through the holes in the social net, holes that have become larger and are still growing under the Bush administration.
I suppose this isn't all that surprising for a press that buys into the Horatio Alger myth; one of the greatest American myths of all time. If they don't believe that social classes and inequalities exist, how could the press ever use them as tools to help explain to the public why crime occurs?
Much as the Columbine shootings were blamed on the media (specifically targeting people like Marilyn Manson), this case looks like it will be just the latest installment in everyone's favorite game show, "Blame the Media for Youth Violence." I agree the media should be blamed, but not in the way that it is being blamed. The media, by ignoring these issues of social class and failing to explore root causes of social problems, is failing in its duty to help readers and viewers understand the world. If we don't understand these causes, we can't fight against them.
And the cycle continues.