Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jun 1, 2016 18:07:44 GMT -5
And tskeeter-I do see your point. But with violent crimes we are safer in the short term knowing the facts than not.
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Kolt!
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Post by Kolt! on Jun 1, 2016 18:11:25 GMT -5
Anyone else ever think sometimes shows like Criminal Minds and CSI and such are actually not that great to have no matter how addicting they are?
They just give killers more ideas on how to kill people. My mom always complains about this as she watches marathons of them on ION. haha
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Jun 2, 2016 7:50:24 GMT -5
And tskeeter -I do see your point. But with violent crimes we are safer in the short term knowing the facts than not. knowing the basic facts and whether the assailant is still on the loose is entirely different from the sensationalization of the crime, the criminal, every facet of his/her life and possible reasons for them to have either snapped or planned whatever they did. for example, since it's in my backyard - after the surviving Marathon bomber was captured, we heard all about how his family life contributed to his conversion to extremism, and what a sad case it was that he blindly followed his brother into such terror. I have yet to buy another issue of Rolling Stone since they made him their cover boy. I don't see myself doing so any time soon. he's been convicted and sentenced to death. let him rot in jail until he's no longer breathing, and just make it a passing byline. I don't really GAF that his mother cries about him daily. she should have spent more time with him before. sorry, /endrant. but you get my point, I hope.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jun 2, 2016 9:00:37 GMT -5
And tskeeter -I do see your point. But with violent crimes we are safer in the short term knowing the facts than not. knowing the basic facts and whether the assailant is still on the loose is entirely different from the sensationalization of the crime, the criminal, every facet of his/her life and possible reasons for them to have either snapped or planned whatever they did. for example, since it's in my backyard - after the surviving Marathon bomber was captured, we heard all about how his family life contributed to his conversion to extremism, and what a sad case it was that he blindly followed his brother into such terror. I have yet to buy another issue of Rolling Stone since they made him their cover boy. I don't see myself doing so any time soon. he's been convicted and sentenced to death. let him rot in jail until he's no longer breathing, and just make it a passing byline. I don't really GAF that his mother cries about him daily. she should have spent more time with him before. sorry, /endrant. but you get my point, I hope. We, good people and bad people, are going to find out more than we ever needed to know of these types of crimes whether a member of the press writes about it or an ameteur writes about it and posts it in social media or a blog. Good or bad, right or wrong, we do live in a [very] immediate information age. It would be nice if no one ever mentioned the perpetrator's name and the reason why they committed the crime(s) they did but the names and reasons will come out sooner or later either right after the crime is comitted or before, during, or after their criminal trial if the killer did not commit suicide. Just like the second amendment protects the rights of citizens to legally own firearms, the first amendment protects the freedom of the press. We may not agree with it some times, but it's what we got and for the most part, has served us well.
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chiver78
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Post by chiver78 on Jun 2, 2016 9:37:29 GMT -5
private citizens and social media are different than people who get paid to gather and report the news. there is a channel here in Boston that is owned by a FL media mogul. I remember when he first bought the station and all the graphics changed to flashy stuff, the pre-commercial teasers were all spun to be the most sensational stories, and the older anchors were slowly removed. hi, this is Boston, not Miami. but, I digress. the point is that the news should be fact, not spun or sensationalized.
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Jun 2, 2016 12:02:11 GMT -5
I think the media is the key. It's a question of self discipline vs pandering to the lowest common denominator. Every day, media outlets make decisions about what stories they will report, which stories will be on the front page, and how long that media outlet is going to keep trying to dredge up new slants on an event. It's a little like what happened with our local newspaper. The paper latched on to stories about people stealing copper to sell for scrap. The paper basically constructed a how to series on copper theft, citing the types of places with large amounts of copper, why it was valuable, and how to dispose of the stolen copper. These stories went on every two or three months for a couple of years. The stories finally ended after a report on tens of thousands of dollars of damage done when copper wire was stolen from scoreboards and lighting systems at a local park. I suspect that the park district went to the paper and told them their reporting was contributing to the problem with the frequency and type of reporting they were doing. After the paper quit writing about copper thefts, the number and severity of copper thefts and other salable metal thefts decreased in the area. How do I know that the thefts declined? By watching the metal thefts at my employer. The pattern of metal thefts experienced by my employer followed the newspaper's reporting. And, a couple of months after the copper theft reporting stopped, so did most of the metal theft experienced by my employer. I live in Tennessee. Should I not be informed, say of the killing of the nine black church goers in S.C. last year by the white kid who wanted to start a race war? Or how about the 26 women and children murdered in Newtown, Ct several years ago. Should that news be held from me, from you, from all of us? When publicizing mass shootings encourages even more mass shootings, you might be better off if the media was more circumspect in what it reports, how it structures the reporting, and the duration of the reporting. What value does the reporting, as done today, provide to the public? If the reporting does not improve your personal safety (and I argue that it doesn't), what value is it to you? How has knowledge of the Sandy Hook or Columbine shootings improved your personal safety? Have you changed your behavior to reduce the risk you are exposed to? Or, does any additional information you get from the media just make you anxious about your safety?
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jun 2, 2016 13:16:02 GMT -5
chiver78 and tskeeter - I am afraid we will just have to disagree on this issue. Whether I agree or disagree with what and how the press is reporting something, I feel stronger about freedom of the press. Like anything else, protest with your letters, feet and dollars how any one news source is reporting the news.
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beergut
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Post by beergut on Jun 3, 2016 5:15:53 GMT -5
I think the media needs to report the mass shootings, but to refrain from glorifying the shooters. Report who did it, if they are dead, report they are dead. Reprinting their manifestos doesn't help anyone, it just sensationalizes the event. Media needs to stick with who/what/when/where/how, and refrain from sensationalism. To answer the OP, I think you are combining all the mass shootings into one group, when I think they are different. I think school shootings are different from the mass shootings that happen in a shopping mall, for instance. You should read Malcolm Gladwell's article on Thresholds of Violence. He discusses the 'Granovetterian model' and threshold hypothesis, the idea that people can do things for social reasons that go against everything they personally believe. The general idea is that the first person to do an activity has a threshold of zero, he needs little motivation to commit the act. The first modern school shooter was Barry Loukaitis on February 2, 1996, 20 years ago. Loukaitis was obsessed with Stephen King's short story "Rage", which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. I read "Rage" as an 8th grader in 1991, and thought it was an excellent story. However, I had no desire to kill a teacher. Loukaitis' threshold would be 0 in this case, while mine would be in the millions or infinity. He needed little motivation to carry out an attack on a school, whereas there isn't a situation where I can imagine attacking a school. Evan Ramsey, who walked into his school with a shotgun and killed two people, was physically and sexually abused at home. He had a threshold of 2. After Loukaitis' incident, Ramsey went off at school. Kip Kinkle, a 15 year old who did a school shooting in Oregon, could be said to have a threshold of 7, because he was the 7th major school shooter. Keep in mind, these seven attacks all happened before Columbine. Since Columbine happened, many school shooters identify themselves with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, identifying themselves as part of the group. Each time there is another school shooting, you are hitting someone with a higher and higher threshold. I think when it comes to non-school mass shootings, the same idea of thresholds applies, but in a different manner. I think we're seeing people with higher thresholds, say 100-150, do a mass shooting because they've seen this is the way to express dissatisfaction with life or a job or a company or whatever. I think the best way to stop mass shootings in public places is simply to get rid of all of the gun-free zones, and let armed people walk among us. Gun-free zones are simply shooting galleries under another name. Best way to stop a mass shooting is to let other armed people kill the shooter. Simple answer is we need more people carrying guns who are comfortable using them, not fewer.
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Chocolate Lover
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Post by Chocolate Lover on Jun 3, 2016 14:53:38 GMT -5
chiver78 and tskeeter - I am afraid we will just have to disagree on this issue. Whether I agree or disagree with what and how the press is reporting something, I feel stronger about freedom of the press. Like anything else, protest with your letters, feet and dollars how any one news source is reporting the news. I don't mind the press reporting it, I mind them beating me over the head with it for days/weeks on end with little or nothing new to add. I'm not a toddler, I don't enjoy repetition. Once is enough, let me know when something new comes up. I generally give up on the news for at least a week once something "major" has happened because it will be the lead story every single day regardless of whether or not they have new information and not just speculation. I recall journalism being about facts not BSing all over the airwaves until half the country takes these random speculations as fact.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Jun 3, 2016 15:01:36 GMT -5
Anyone else ever think sometimes shows like Criminal Minds and CSI and such are actually not that great to have no matter how addicting they are? They just give killers more ideas on how to kill people. My mom always complains about this as she watches marathons of them on ION. haha Not to mention the shows are most often based on violence against women (and sometimes children)... well, they use to be in the past -- Nothing like a nice evening of TV entertainment based on the rape and/or murder of women/children...
But, yes, I agree that if the 15 minutes of media fame is what drives violence (mass murder and/or murder/suicides) then surely the never ending parade of 'crime shows' on TV must drive violence as well. And those shows are pretty much 24/7.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jun 3, 2016 15:10:47 GMT -5
chiver78 and tskeeter - I am afraid we will just have to disagree on this issue. Whether I agree or disagree with what and how the press is reporting something, I feel stronger about freedom of the press. Like anything else, protest with your letters, feet and dollars how any one news source is reporting the news. I don't mind the press reporting it, I mind them beating me over the head with it for days/weeks on end with little or nothing new to add. I'm not a toddler, I don't enjoy repetition. Once is enough, let me know when something new comes up. I generally give up on the news for at least a week once something "major" has happened because it will be the lead story every single day regardless of whether or not they have new information and not just speculation. I recall journalism being about facts not BSing all over the airwaves until half the country takes these random speculations as fact. I understand. I do too. But when I get tired of it, I use this. It has a channel changer and and On/Off button:
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Chocolate Lover
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Post by Chocolate Lover on Jun 3, 2016 15:31:26 GMT -5
I don't mind the press reporting it, I mind them beating me over the head with it for days/weeks on end with little or nothing new to add. I'm not a toddler, I don't enjoy repetition. Once is enough, let me know when something new comes up. I generally give up on the news for at least a week once something "major" has happened because it will be the lead story every single day regardless of whether or not they have new information and not just speculation. I recall journalism being about facts not BSing all over the airwaves until half the country takes these random speculations as fact. I understand. I do too. But when I get tired of it, I use this. It has a channel changer and and On/Off button: Didn't I say I stop watching? The point is, unless there's something new to add, move on to the next thing that is currently going on and update as progress, REAL progess not speculation, is made.
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OldCoyote
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Post by OldCoyote on Jun 3, 2016 23:49:58 GMT -5
Statistically, you don't have to worry about it, When we had the freeway shooter, shooting up things.
I never changed any of my routine, I drove on the freeway several times a day. No problem.
Now if you lead a risky life style, that changes!!
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toomuchreality
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Post by toomuchreality on Jun 6, 2016 2:21:02 GMT -5
We had an active shooter situation Sunday a.m. about 10 miles from me. Two dead, including the gunman, and 8 or so wounded. Could have been much, much worse. Folks going to the carwash, the ATM, to church, etc. As always, there were heroes in the hell, Eagle Scout applied a tourniquet, etc. Even though it was miles away and I don't personally know anyone involved, it sure is different when it's your town and not just a story on CNN about someplace else. I'm surprised at how much it bothers me. I had a moment of not wanting to go to the mall today, or even leave home at all. This carp is really hard to wrap your head around. The usual platitudes don't cut it. Scary stuff! There have been a couple of these shootings over the years, within a few miles of where I live. I sure don't understand why they do it. But I understand the fear afterwards. I have to consciously try not to focus too much on them, or I'd never leave my apt - not even to check my mail. Then I would become afraid to answer the door and so on. A person can't live with that much fear. I'm sorry this happened. I hope you're feeling a bit better.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2016 20:57:01 GMT -5
We had an active shooter situation Sunday a.m. about 10 miles from me. Two dead, including the gunman, and 8 or so wounded. Could have been much, much worse. Folks going to the carwash, the ATM, to church, etc. As always, there were heroes in the hell, Eagle Scout applied a tourniquet, etc. Even though it was miles away and I don't personally know anyone involved, it sure is different when it's your town and not just a story on CNN about someplace else. I'm surprised at how much it bothers me. I had a moment of not wanting to go to the mall today, or even leave home at all. This carp is really hard to wrap your head around. The usual platitudes don't cut it. Scary stuff! There have been a couple of these shootings over the years, within a few miles of where I live. I sure don't understand why they do it. But I understand the fear afterwards. I have to consciously try not to focus too much on them, or I'd never leave my apt - not even to check my mail. Then I would become afraid to answer the door and so on. A person can't live with that much fear. I'm sorry this happened. I hope you're feeling a bit better. Thanks, I am feeling better because life has moved on as it will. I will still jump at sudden sharp noises anywhere, everywhere. I guess that's the new reality for us all. There truly seems to be no possible way to protect against those who threaten because we just don't have a way to get inside their heads regardless if they are victims of high school bullying or survivors of brutal warfare. Right now, I'm just trying to live in the moment because that's all we have.
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