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There are over 10 million World of Warcraft subscribers.
Let us assume that Glitterface Twinkleshine was driven by his love of WoW to begin his rampage. That still leaves over 10 million subscribers who didn't wig out and kill anyone.
This is exactly the same thing as blaming the guns.
Do the right thing, Big Media. For the children?
What we don't need is laws banning broadcast and publishing of certain items.
What we don't need is a different deodand to blame.
Unfortunately there's definitely a causal relationship between the media's reporting on these events and the next Mr Twinkleshine. I don't propose we force the media to do what's right. I propose they step up like decent human beings.
For the childern, Big Media, for the children.
Update:
It occurs that the way the media reports on such things in a way that aggrandizes the shooter is very similar to yelling fire in a crowded theater. They often cite that as a limitation on the first amendment while calling for limitations on the second. Except that prior restraint was shot down more than once by the Supreme Court.
What I'd like is for the media to recognize that the manner of their reporting, in order to score points against the pro-gun side is having the result of creating the very thing we both wish to stop happening. Assuming that they really do wish to see it stop. The cynic in me thinks they are perfectly happy to have these slaughters so they can continue to score their talking points against guns.
Who would have guessed that Roger Ebert, in defending Hollywood, would stumble into the truth about "Why?"...?
ReplyDelete' Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
' The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
' In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. '
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=%2F20031107%2Freviews%2F311070301%2F1023
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