Timely and Smart

I recently re-read a book from 2000 about the aftermath, impact and some possible reasons for the Columbine school shooting in 1999 (It's shelf-culling time and the book is kind of dated, but more on that in a potential future entry).

One of the things that struck me was the relative slowness of the usual suspects with their responses. Stuff about violent video games, violent images in the media and so on took a week or so and some considerations of the incident and issues surrounding it were prepared over a considerable time. Now we react with light speed and with opinions and comments that demonstrate every second of the thought taken to create them.

Which makes this piece by Emily Richmond in Columbia Journalism Review so interesting, as she suggests education reporters and others take a serious look at the way journalism covers such shootings when they happen at schools. Overloaded coverage has caused several significant overreactions by schools and other institutions, Richmond said, and the notoriety given to the shooters may push someone over the tipping point who would have walked back from the brink otherwise.

It's worth reading the whole thing, and if I were still in that business it's something that would make me think about the different crimes and misfortunes I had covered and whether or not I had been as responsible as I should. It's the kind of thing you'd hope a lot of newspaper, magazine and website editors would take a look at and at least play around with in some discussions or staff meetings.

TV? Nah, that's beyond hope. Whatever journalism used to be done in that medium is mostly gone & the best thing one can hope for is for the 24-hour-maw to get distracted quickly by the next shiny thing that comes along.