The following is a quote from our text:
In the nineteenth century and far into the twentieth century, newspapers and then TV news strove for “objectivity,” or neutrality, muting their political viewpoints to appeal to the broadest possible audience. However, in today’s fragmented marketplace (where we now have more and more media options), newspapers and TV news have lost a lot of their audiences to smartphones, social networks, and the Internet. This means that the media must target smaller groups with shared interests— such as conservatives, liberals, sports fanatics, history buffs, or shopaholics— to find an audience—and the advertisers and revenue that come with them.
Take this quote into consideration as you do the following:
1) Read a number of reports on the Sandy Hook School shooting from DIFFERENT news sources. Some you may want to look at are: NYTimes, Fox News, BBC, NPR, New Yorker, Newton local papers, and Hudson Valley local papers.
2) After reading a few, pick two or more that are vastly different in their reporting/storytelling.
3) Summarize both and explain 1) The major differences and 2) The reason you believe the newspaper reported it the way they did. What were their aims? How did they want their readers to feel? React?
Make sure to use at least one citation from Chapter 7 of our textbook.
Do not feel limited to only report on the event itself. You may choose to focus on gun control, for example, an issue that has exploded after the shooting.
As technology becomes more of a necessity, our old forms of media are becoming less popular. The media is forced to target a more specific audience that will have interest in what they are trying to sell. “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the near future, date TBD” was said by Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times. This is an example of how previous media sources are struggling due to the intensity of the internet and smart phone phenomenon. With that said when reading articles on the Sandy Hook shooting there were several different attitudes and stories that focused on this particular topic. Two stories in particular are: The New York Times article, “Newton Debates School’s Fate after Shooting,” and Fox News’s article, “Gun Country' second gun-themed program suspended by Discovery; cable genre under fire after Sandy Hook shooting.” The New York Times article discusses the aftermath of the school shooting. The article presents the debate of what should the residents of Newton do with Sandy Hook Elementary? The writers were able to interview parents whose children were present the day of the shooting and siblings of those who were involved. Various sources respond with different opinions. One mother claims that the school will forever be a nightmare and her child never wants to step back in that building. On the other end of the spectrum, other children want to go back and continue to create positive memories and remember this school the way it should be remembered, with smiles and laughs. Many residents brought up similar school shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, both schools were renovated, reopened, and parts of the school was turned into a memorial.
ReplyDeleteIn the Fox News article it too discusses some of the aftermath of the shooting but takes a very different route. This article discusses how certain gun related shows are being cancelled as a result of the Sandy Hook shooting. A show such as “American Guns” from the Discovery Channel was cancelled after a two successful seasons. In addition, “Sons of Guns,” another Discovery Channel show, was being criticized and was said that “people glorifying the use of assault guns.” Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook were popular sports for Americans to talk about their attitude toward these gun specific shows. This article does a good job of addressing both sides of the argument. While some viewers, especially after Sandy Hook, believe these gun shows should be shut down others have a very different outlook. Jesse Csincsak, reality star, stated that “Americans always look for something to blame things on, so since guns have been involved in a lot of crimes lately- hey, let’s blame guns…Once people stop blaming the objects and start blaming the people using them, the world we live in will be a better place.” This concept is the exact idea that Michael Moore discusses in his documentary, “Bowling for Columbine”. This issue is what concerns many; are guns the cause of all this violence or are the people behind them the cause? Personally, I’m torn on this subject. I think it is a little bit of both. The media today, such as these television shows, some times does glorify violence and turn it into entertainment. However, people are responsible for their actions and should be more cautious when it comes to gun control.
Although both articles address the aftermath of Sandy Hook shooting, one article discusses the actual school and the people involved while the other addresses the use of gun control and how television glorifies guns. Both articles got their readers thinking about the situation at hand and allow each reader to develop their own opinion on each topic.
The CNN article, “Sandy Hook shooting: What happened?” is an example of objective journalism. The piece is simply a “factual report that maintains a neutral attitude toward the issue” (Media & Culture page 229). It is a short article that provides the name of the shooter and a description of the guns he used, including three pictures. There is a picture of the layout of Sandy Hook Elementary School followed by a brief description of the events that transpired at the school on December 14th. Just under the title the article is described as a “timeline of events that compiles the latest reporting.”
ReplyDeleteThe article does not contain any quotes from survivors or family members of the victims. The author makes no attempt at appealing to readers’ pathos, it is merely factual- a piece that quickly sums up what happened for readers looking to get the basic information about the shooting. The piece is one of CNN’s first of many reports on the shooting, therefore its aim is to give readers basic knowledge of the events so they will be drawn in to read the upcoming articles that provide more details about the shooting.
Conversely, the USA TODAY article, “School Shooting Survivor Tells Her Story” does appeal to readers’ pathos by beginning with an account of the day’s events by Shari Thornberg, a special needs aid at Sandy Hook Elementary. Through Thornberg’s eyes, readers are able to better imagine the scene and perhaps picture what it would have been like to be hiding in a closet as children were being killed down the hall. The USA TODAY article provides readers with the same general information as the CNN one, however it is easy to feel more connected to this one because of the quotes given by Thornberg. She tells the interviewer that her “biggest concern is how we are going to move forward.” With quotes like this, the article aims to put readers in the same mindset as the citizens of Newton, Connecticut. People around the country are most likely having the same thoughts as Thornberg. Her insight provides perspective, informing readers of the factual happenings of the event. It also provides emotional expression, forcing readers to really sympathize for her and all of the others associated with the event.
At the end of the article there is a photo of one of Sandy Hook’s tiny victims, Allison Wyatt. By providing a picture of the adorable six year old, the USA TODAY article is much more heartbreaking than the CNN one, where there are three images of the shooter’s weapons. Seeing the face of a victim brings the shooting to life. Readers realize that this is real and it has happened in our country. The USA TODAY article does what the CNN article does not, in that it invokes emotions in its readers, forcing them to perhaps read up on related issues such as gun control.
article 1: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
article 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/18/connecticut-school-shooting-survivor/1778431/
In today’s society, getting a variety of opinions is hardly a challenge when interested in educating oneself about a news story or current event. The Internet provides us with the ability to obtain information from a variety of sources, which in turns gives us the opportunity to take all sources into account and form our own opinions. Compare an Internet user to a subscriber of only one newspaper, and the Internet user has access to many different takes on the same exact subject while the newspaper reader has access to only one viewpoint, one which they’ve probably been reading for a while. Media and Culture explains that, “online journalism is completely changing the industry. First, rather than subscribing to a traditional paper, many readers now begin their day logging on to the Internet and scanning a wide variety of news sites, including those of print papers, cable news channels, news magazines, bloggers, and online-only news organizations. Such sources are increasingly taking over the roles of more traditional forms of news, helping to set the nation’s cultural, social, and political agendas” (Campbell 233). Newspapers are aware of this change and some have since altered their style of reporting. Knowing that Internet users can get their information from any source, newspapers have begun to appeal to a more specific audience in order to keep their readers. By comparing sources, bias in stories can and should be analyzed and taken into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThe terrible shooting at Sandy Hook School has brought the gun control discussion to the surface of many political debates. RYOT News even quoted U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal saying, “Newtown has transformed America, and we need to build on that sense of urgency going forward...Preventing gun violence was thought to be untouchable politically two months ago. That unspeakable horror has given us unstoppable momentum” (Christoffersen). After reading a number of articles about the shooting, the main difference in reporting that I noticed was that each source gave a difference sense of how much success and support each side of the issue (gun control/gun rights) has.
FoxNews reporting in the opening line of their article that, “Firearm restrictions pitched by Colorado Democrats advanced Monday, as the battle over them intensified with hundreds of gun rights supporters cramming the state Capitol and circling the building all day with car horns blaring” (Associated). The article further describes that the state of Colorado, which was the location of the Aurora shooting, is considering passing gun control bills. The story features quotes from various relatives of victims, such as a father of an Aurora victim and a sister of a Sandy Hook victim. More enthusiasm for the gun rights side is brought up when the story says, “Gun rights supporters walked the Capitol halls wearing stickers that read, ‘I Vote Pro-Gun.’ Several dozen people outside the Capitol waved American flags as light snow fell, and a small plane flew overhead carrying a banner with a message for the governor, HICK: DO NOT TAKE OUR GUNS!’” (Associated). Although there is a lot of information about why the bills don’t “make any sense”, there is information about people who support the bill as well, such as Jane Dougherty who, “has been lobbying Colorado lawmakers to pass new gun laws” (Associated).
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ReplyDeleteComparatively, MSNBC reported major success toward passing gun control laws in their article, explaining that in the “first vote” on the issue after Sandy Hook via the Democratic primary election in Illinois resulted in a pro-gun control victory. The two opponents were Robin Kelly, running on a pro-gun control platform, versus Debbie Halvorson, who “got an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association” (Muller). The story is all about how pro-gun control is gaining momentum and even mentioning later in the article that VP Joe Biden, “sent a message loud and clear to the NRA and politicians around the country: the majority of Americans want more gun control” (Muller). This report gives the sense that almost everyone supports these laws and that it’s barely a competition, totally disregarding the other side of the issue. They later provide a statistic at the end, even further pushing their message, “A newly released NBC/WSJ poll found 61% favor stricter gun sale laws — that’s up five points from January” (Muller).
I think that both of these articles have a bias that they are sending to the reader. Each article is giving a somewhat false sense that the majority of Americans agree with their side of the issue. They dramatize events that prove their objective and want their readers to feel like most people agree with them (although I think that MSNBC reports on an issue that lends further ability to do this). This example clearly shows the importance of getting information from a variety of sources to make it less possible to be manipulated in some way by newspapers.
Works Cited
Associated Press. "Colorado Lawmakers Advance Package of Gun Control Bills." Fox News. FOX News Network, 05 Mar. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013. .
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
Christoffersen, John. "Biden Invokes Sandy Hook Victims During Gun-Control Speech." RYOT News. Associated Press, 22 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013. .
Muller, Sarah. "In Post-Sandy Hook America, Gun Control Gets Its First Test With Voters." MSNBC. NBC Universal, 28 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013. .
When I first heard about the Sandy Hook school shooting, it was from a colleague at work who is also a student teacher. She came into work a few hours late, with tears in her eyes and her face was puffy from crying. I asked her why she was upset and she informed me of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. When I got home from work, all of the news stations were reporting on the tragedy. It was horrifying that children were murdered; all the more horrifying was that they were in school, a place that is supposed to be safe. I cried and I wondered what would make someone kill children for no apparent reason? I was not the only person trying to get at the shooter’s motives. In less than a few hours after the shooting, the big news corporations were releasing alleged information from the crime scene, however, depending on what news station you watched, the information you heard varied. Online news articles were changing by the hour, as more information was being released.
ReplyDeleteIn an article I read in CNN, titles “Sandy Hook Shooting: What Happened?,” it was reported that the shooter Adam Lanza was a force to be reckoned with. Lanza shot his way into the locked school, carrying automatic assault rifles and dressed in military gear. The article mentions the havoc he caused on the school premises and the results of his actions, but does not discuss the reasons behind the event. Readers are informed about the event in the school, but are left wondering why Adam Lanza chose this day, this school, and behaved in this way?
Another article, published by Fox News, titled “As Nation Mourns, Investigators Try to Figure Out What Led to Tragedy in Newtown, Conn.,” has their own rendition of the tragedy. Fox reports that Lanza was “smart but painfully awkward,” and that he, “was believed to suffer from a personality disorder” (As). Prior to wreaking havoc the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother, with her legally owned guns. The aftermath of the elementary school shooting was that eighteen students, six school employees, including the principal, and the shooter were dead. While Fox reported with some motives, all biological, we are still left wondering why would someone, Lanza in particular, do this?
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ReplyDeleteI believe the newspapers reported the way they did to attract attention at the time they were published. The CNN article was published on December 16th, four days after the shooting. The Fox News article does not provide a publishing date, but one can infer was published after more information was released as the article includes a timeline of the events leading up and following the shooting. I think CNN just wanted to release a story about the Sandy Hook shooting before much evidence was given to the public. While the information does not speculate anything, as does the Fox article, it simply summarizes what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary on that day. As people were left wondering why Adam Lanza did this, Fox may have released their article to give answers as to why. While no concrete evidence is given behind the motives of Lanza, Fox reports, under speculation. Both articles wanted their readers to feel informed and saddened about what happened on December 12th in Newtown, CT, but Fox may have wanted to provoke more anger into their readers. Personally, I feel that as Fox is a conservative news network, which tends to be pro-military and weaponry, they are more likely to scapegoat Lanza, as he had a mental defect; therefore, it could not have been society’s easy availability to gun possession, right? Instead of looking at how society is affected by guns, Fox pinpoints Lanza, an individual. Meanwhile, in Aurora, CO, just a few months before the Sandy Hook shooting, James Holmes shot up a movie theater, leaving twelve dead. I believe that the news networks include their own interests into their reporting on the shooting, as they do with everything else they report. News networks operate to promote their own interests. “Online journalism is completely changing the industry…Such sources are increasingly taking over the roles of more traditional forms of news, helping to set the nation’s cultural, social, and political agendas,” for better or worse (Campbell 233). While the stories may appear similar, viewers need to remain skeptical about the intentions of the networks.
"Sandy Hook Shooting: what Happened?" CNN.com .
"As nation mourns, investigators try to figure out what led to tragedy in Newtown, Conn." FoxNews.com
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Campbell, Richard, et al. "Media and Culture." Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012.
In today’s society the news has seemed to lose its objective touch. The new focuses articles and discussions on certain audiences instead of putting forth a broad and generalized story. Modern media has shaped the news by centralizing on the stories media moguls find the most important and most of the time these tend to relate to unimportant Hollywood events. There are barely news stories that remain a “factual report that maintains a neutral attitude toward the issue” (Media & Culture p.229). The stories I found on the Sandy Hook tragedy prove this point by targeting their stories to certain demographics.The first article I found, entitled “Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site” was published in The New York Times. This story is in the perspective of the police force and how the experience is still affecting their lives today. The article describes the day of the Sandy Hook shooting from the five early responders. These men were among the first to arrive on the scene and they discovered all 26 victims. The men discuss how hard it was to witness the death of these innocent children and how it is still following them months later. The second article I read was “Lockdown” from The New Yorker. This story targeted Sandy Hook but from a gun control perspective. The editorial mentioned how America is becoming more and more used to these crazy tragedies from all the gun shootings that have happen in the past; this shooting standing out among the rest from the fact that these children have not reached age 8. The story discussed the weapons of choice for the killer and highlighted the fact that these guns were purchased at a local store. While the first article was aimed to hit the heartstrings of the readers, the second article was aimed to inform the audience of the obscene gun control rules. I believe The York Times choose to highlight the police force because they were such a prevalent part of the shooting and their side has really never been told. Although the police were not harmed by the 20 year old killer, they were the ones that had to discover these sweet and innocent victims. The New Yorker targeted gun control because it was become such a huge topic trending in our society today. Gun control is a scary issue because it so easy to obtain a gun. Gun laws are now one of the most controversial topics to date and The New Yorker was smart to feature fire arms with relation to the Sandy Hook tragedy. I believe both of these newspapers wanted their audiences to feel remorse for the victims lost and to motivate a nation to help put these important gun laws into effect.
ReplyDeleteWorks Cited
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
Rivera, Ray. "Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013.
Lepore, Jill. "Lockdown." The New Yorker. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2013.
The Internet works wonders with what people in society generally want to obtain. The information that seems relevant to them is searched throughout the Internet and within seconds an answer can be found. However, when we observe and view broadcasts and newspapers, information that seems relevant to what’s going on in society at the moment is the only thing that is held to people’s attention. Everything is very limited and even the same stories have different viewpoints that are projected through various sources of papers and television broadcasts that alter the way people feel about the subject. One major tragedy that occurred not to long ago was the Sandy Hook School shooting. Broadcasters and news reporters rushed to the scene within thirty minutes and within a few days different sources of information flooded the country.
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times wrote an article that focused primarily on this notion of moving forward from the horrible tragedy. “The respect and kindness among people has been remarkable. You might think the words ‘Newtown student,’ like ‘Columbine student,’ would bring to mind kids who are traumatized, psychological casualties. But we’re determined to have ‘Newtown student’ mean something different — to become a role model for the best of humanity — for showing that light can come out of darkness” (New York Times). This article started off with an emotional beginning in order to captivate the audience. Brendon had two kids and the piece focused first on what his situation was like after the incident had occurred. There was an immediate sense of remorse for the person the more the story progressed on. The writer wanted to establish a connection by having an emotional appeal to the audience with the personal information that was added to the story.
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ReplyDeleteHowever, on the other hand an article from Fox news concentrated on summarizing/ informing people on how the school was adjusting to the incident and the efforts that were being made to move forward as a collective within the community. They talked about how the schools name was changed from Chalk Hill Middle School to Sandy Hook Elementary School. A brief discussion was placed upon the security of the school and how changes were made for the better to ensure that the school had nothing else to worry about except this notion of moving forward. “Teams of workers, many of them volunteers, prepared the Chalk Hill school with fresh paint and new furniture and even raised bathroom floors so the smaller elementary school students can reach the toilets. The students' desks, backpacks and other belongings that were left behind following the shooting were taken to the new school to make them feel at home” (Fox News). Both articles focused on moving forward as a school and ultimately as a community but the huge distinction between the New York Times and Fox News revolved around the personal information that regarded the victims in the New York Times.
When referring to the Internet and the abilities it possesses versus actual newspapers and documents from the source itself, there is a huge advantage to how creditable the source can be. Compared to the Internet newspapers come directly from the source and can not be easily reworded or changed whereas the Internet obtains abilities that can alter the story itself. Unfortunately based on the digital age we live in today newspapers are predicted to not be around much longer. “Despite the importance of newspapers in daily life, in today’s age the industry is losing both papers and readers” (Media and Culture 221). The significance and importance newspapers obtain is strongly taken advantage of based on the different devices that are held at our exposure. I believe there is this constant strive for progression in todays day and age and that is great, but I also believe that people must not forget about where we started and how much more accurate information can be if newspapers continue to be a part of this progression.
Works Cited:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/02/sandy-hook-students-teachers-head-back-to-school-thursday/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/nyregion/sandy-hook-students-return-to-class-in-new-building.html?_r=0
When media had first begun, there were very few types. Newspapers and TV news strove to be very neutral in order to gain the broadest audience possible. Because we now have so many different types of media, audiences are lost and media is now forced to narrow down their information to target smaller groups of people with shared interests in order to gain a bigger crowd. This can be seen through an event like the Sandy Hook school shooting. While comparing two articles from two newspapers huge differences can be seen between the articles. I compared articles from BBC News and the New York Times.
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times, considered a more local newspaper, used more of a storytelling type of genre to write their article. They tried to capture their audience with an emotional appeal. They used a lot of adjectives and describing words, such as brutal, horrific, and sobbing, to explain what happened during the event. They started off the article with the shooting and explained what had happened after that. They seemed to use many local people’s quotes to describe what had happened and to hear their thoughts about it. They only vaguely touch on the point of gun control because it seems that their main concern is the smaller picture of what had happened that day rather than the big picture of gun control. They seem to be questioning how a person could do such a horrible thing and not exactly focusing on a new law set in place. Because this is more of a local newspaper they tend to sound more heart wrenching by saying statements such as, “hundreds of terrified parents arrived as their sobbing children were led out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in a wooded corner of Newtown, Conn.” (New York Times). They were looking for an audience that seems to be family oriented and who want to actually know about the town and the people in it. They didn’t put much focus on the gunman only the kids who had died and the people of the town. I believe they wanted to focus on the mourning process that should be taking place and not just move past it so quick to worry about how to prevent another one. They are trying to show their condolences first before allowing gun control to come up in topic.
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ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, BBC News is a countrywide newspaper. They start their article off by explaining what had happened before the shooting at the school and who the shooter was. They are very straightforward with the details of the event as if they were writing a police report. They wrote statements such as, “Newtown police were notified of shooting at the school over their radios at 09:36” (BBC News). They don’t use very many adjectives to explain the event. It just explains exactly what happened detail by detail like bullet points rather than telling a story. Many of the quotes used in the article are from a police dispatcher or a police that just explain what exactly happened at what time. They go into detail about the gunman, in a way making him into a celebrity. They are not focusing on the emotions of the people in the town, only doing their job to report an event. Also at the end of the article they put a link to another article about gun control. I believe they weren’t even thinking about what had actually happened, they were only trying to get an article out there. They were looking at the bigger picture of gun control and they moved right past the event in thinking about how to prevent another one rather than mourning what had just happened. They were looking for an audience who just wants to see what is happening in the world, an audience that doesn’t live close to Connecticut so they don’t feel as much of a connection to what happened.
It is very interesting to see how both of these news sources can talk about the same event in completely different ways. They each want a specific audience and are very good at obtaining those audiences. One newspaper (the local one) used an emotional appeal while the other just focused on the details of the event. In my eyes the local one was more appealing, which brings up an interesting thought about how newspapers can’t be as neutral anymore. If they want to obtain a bigger crowd, they need to pick sides to focus on certain audiences. “ Journalists must make the significant interesting and relevant” (Media and Culture 230). In other words, the only way news can be appealing these days is by focusing on a certain side to grab that audience’s attention.
Works Cited
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20738998
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
As we have discussed in class, and as the quote above has made clear, the objective voice of many news or newspaper sources has become tainted with subject views as they try to appeal to specific audiences. While there are still some sources who may try to keep it objective, it can be difficult to find these. What is somewhat scary about this is the fact that these sources can be extremely influential to those who are exposed to them. “As chronicles of daily life, newspapers both inform and entertain…Columnists provide everything from advice on raising children to opinions on the U.S. role as an economic and military superpower. Newspapers help readers make choices about everything from what kind of food to eat to what kind of leaders to elect.” (Media & Culture, p.221). When consumers are constantly exposed to the personal views and opinions of the author/columnist, it may interfere with the formation of, as well as influence their own opinions and views. In searching through the many articles that were focused on the Sandy Hook shooting, it became clear how subjective many newspaper and news sources have become. The issue of gun control is one topic that has come up again and again in many articles, and it is obvious which articles are pro-gun control, and which ones are against it. An article in The New Yorker titled ‘Lockdown’ is an example of one article that is clearly pro-gun control. The article gives a short introduction giving the basic details known about the school shooting. It quickly moves on to mention other shootings that have occurred over the past year in Ohio, Florida, California, and of course Aurora, Colorado. The author of the article, Jill Lepore, goes on to explain about how in the past year “There were shootings in hospitals and shootings on the streets, shootings in temples and shootings in shopping malls. There were shootings in kitchens and shootings in back yards. This shooting, a shooting in an elementary school, is a last chapter in an American Book of Job: What have we more?” (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/lockdown.html). Lepore makes it clear that to her, there is a problem with the amount of shootings that have been occurring in this country. As she continues on, she explains some of the legislation that has gone through the Senate and Congress in relation to gun control. It appears that Lepore wants her readers to see and understand that we do not know everything that happens in our Congress and Senate. She explains “Not long ago, a Senate bill that would have made it legal for armed citizens to carry concealed guns between states was defeated by just two votes.” (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/lockdown.html). She continues on with a somewhat negative perspective as she explains that elementary schools will never be the same after this, the way high schools and colleges have never been the same since shooting such as Columbine, and Virginia Tech. While Lepore does not flat out say ‘I believe there should be stricter gun laws’, it is easy to see through this article that she believes, or at least points to the idea that more gun control would result in fewer shootings, both in schools and in everyday life.
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ReplyDeleteOn the opposite side of this argument, there is an article from Fox News Insider that looks at a short speech given by Mark Mattioli, the father of a six year old boy who was shot and killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. This article, titled ‘Dad of Sandy Hook Victim Gives Emotional Remarks on Gun Control, Saying ‘The Probem is Not Gun Laws’’, focuses on Mattiolis opinion on gun control, which is evidently the opposite of Lepores. It explains how he thinks that we need to look further into the mental health aspect as opposed to creating more gun laws. The article describes how ‘Mattioli states “We need civility across our nation. What we’re seeing are symptoms of a bigger problem. This is a symptom. The problem is not gun laws. The problem is a lack of civility.”.’ (http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/28/video-dad-of-sandy-hook-victim-gives-emotional-remarks-on-gun-control-saying-the-problem-is-not-gun-laws/#more-102846). This article places a large amount of attention on Mattiolis speech and the idea that we do not need any more gun laws. It makes very clear the opinion that we need to enforce the laws that are already in place. As the article explains “Mattioli added that an emphasis needs to be placed on parenting and on personal accountability.” (http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/28/video-dad-of-sandy-hook-victim-gives-emotional-remarks-on-gun-control-saying-the-problem-is-not-gun-laws/#more-102846). It describes how, as explained in Mattiolis speech, this may not be easy to do, however, it is simpler than people may think. At the end of the article, there is a 5 to 6 minute clip of the speech that the reader is encouraged to watch. This article is one that is clearly subjective as it does not try to hide the opinions shared that gun control is not the answer. The article even uses sympathy as it explains Mattioli getting choked up multiple times throughout his speech. The author of this article, I assume, wants the readers to understand that even parents of children who were shot in such a terrible tragedy can see that there is more to this problem than just making stricter gun laws. Both of these articles have failed to remain objective as the content of each one is geared toward a specific audience. On the one hand you have an author who wants people to see the potentially horrible outcomes from people owning certain guns. This author wants the readers to understand that we need stricter gun laws. On the other hand you have an author who wants people to see that it is not the guns that are causing the problem. This author wants the readers to see that mental health, parenting, and personal accountability are the underlying factors that need to be looked at instead. In both cases, there was a target audience, and there was a purpose behind the way that they chose to share the information that they did.
Works Cited
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/28/video-dad-of-sandy-hook-victim-gives-emotional-remarks-on-gun-control-saying-the-problem-is-not-gun-laws/#more-102846
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/lockdown.html
The Sandy Hook shooting caused a great uproar in politics and society as well about the causes of such behavior and the issue of gun violence. News networks like FOX, ABC, and CNN will cover the story the rest of the day telling us about new information uncovered, and then the front of newspapers are covered in the tragedy at Sandy Hook. However, if we take a look at the articles and papers that covered the Sandy Hook story, each has changed the story in some way to appeal to the audience they attract to their website or read their paper, which is shown through the articles the NY Times and CNN provided on their websites. In the NY Times article they show a diagram of the school and the events that occurred on that fatal day at Sandy Hook, but underneath the diagram is a list of other school shootings that occurred in history ranking by the total causalities. The CNN article they talked about the guns Adam Lanza brought to school and give additional information about what happened in the school based on survivors of the shooting, a diagram of the school and where the events occurred, and the police response to the shooting. In the NY Times article they seem to be more aimed towards the shooter and no the events that occurred on that date, despite the fact they provided the diagram with the events that happened. They didn’t go into much detail describing the events or how they unfolded, just provided the facts based on testimonies and accounts of those involved and survivors of the shooting. Also the NY Times provides a list of the deadliest school shootings at the end of the article, but for what purpose did they do this? In the article not once do they provide the names of any victims of the shooting only just numbers on a table, 27 people killed, and provide the gun man’s name, Adam Lanza. Even though NY Times was trying to provide the facts to their consumers and readers, the information they provide in this article is notarizing the gun man and not the victims in this case. While on the other hand, The CNN article seems to provide a more factual or informative view of the incident compared to the NY Times article. Even though they do provide the name of the shooter like the NY Times did, they do it in a way that is not ranked but pertaining towards information about the shooting that occurred and the means it happened as well. In the end both papers, reported the topic in the least bias way possible, CNN seemed to succeed more in my point of view rather than the NY Time. With his ever changing world we companies need to conform to their readers or cease to exist, but with The NY Times and CNN, they try to provide the most informative, non-weighed viewed of events. “The loss of papers, readers, advertising and inventor confidence raises significant concerns in a nation where daily news has historically functioned to ‘speak the truth’ by holding elected officials responsible and acting as a watchdog for democratic life.” (pg. 221) Without these neutral views of news and events are society will be spilt into 2 polar opposites without any help of comprising, but that’s where informative newspaper allow us to make our own thoughts and opinions on topics instead of being fed them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/14/nyregion/The-shooting-at-the-Sandy-Hook-Elementary.html?_r=0
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
The two articles that I found covering the Sandy Hook School shooting are very different in their reporting/storytelling ways. In the textbook it explains how in the late 1800’s two distinct types of journalisms emerged. “..the story-driven model, dramatizing important events and used by the penny papers and the yellow press; and the “just the facts” model, an approach that appeared to package information more impartially and that the six-cent papers favored.” (Media and Culture) I believe that the two articles that I found on this topic fall into these two categories. The first article I found was from the NY Times. It explains the actions that went on that day from the beginning to the end. Including what the gunman did that morning to how the town was reacting come night fall and everything in between. In this article it is strictly the facts. There is no exaggeration to make the story more dramatic than it already is. If this article was to be placed in either one of the journalism categories it would be put into the “just the facts” model. I think that the newspaper reported it the way that they did because that is what people want to hear. When a tragedy like this goes on people are waiting for the big article the next morning in the paper to really get the facts of what happened and not have to worry about all of the rumors being broadcasted on the news stations. By the next morning the news should be clear on what happened and the rumors should be shut out. Especially older generations rely on the newspapers to get their news and get factual information. The NY Times wanted their readers to feel informed and sorry for what the situation in Newtown actually was. This article was not about frightening others and bringing up gun control, it was simply an article to share the actions that went on in Newtown and nothing more.
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ReplyDeleteThe second article I found was from the NY Daily News. This article was all about Adam Lanza and what is believed to be his motive. This story without a doubt is a story driven model. The article headline states that they are pondering the fact that Lanza could have possibly been replaying a scenario from a gory video game. “During a search of the Newtown home he shared with his mother, Nancy Lanza, who also died Dec. 10 at the hands of her son, authorities discovered what appeared to be dozens, if not hundreds, of graphically violent games, the Hartford Courant reported.” (NY Daily News) This article is based on the fact that Lanza had a lot of violent video games in his room. I think that this article was written to try and scare parents into thinking that violent video games should not be allowed in a home, which has been a touchy topic for a while now. The article also goes on to explain how Lanza had mental issues, and how him and his mother spent a lot of bonding time in the gun range. After reading this article, I had a completely different feeling than I did reading the NY Times one. This one was all about Lanza and what could have been his possible motives, it contained minimal factual information and did not mention the fallen children at all. In the NY Times article, it explains how their were no motives found. “Law enforcement officials offered no hint of what had motivated Mr. Lanza. It was also unclear, one investigator said, why Mr. Lanza — after shooting his mother to death inside her home — drove her car to the school and slaughtered the children. “I don’t think anyone knows the answers to those questions at this point,” the official said. As for a possible motive, he added, “we don’t know much for sure.” (NY Times). However, this article is all about Lanza’s ‘possible’ motives. It is a storytelling article that was written to create fear among the public.
These two articles are both very different and get different reactions from different people. I think that the public would rather read a “just the facts” model article rather than a “story-driven” model. I know I would.
Media and Culture Textbook
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/violent-games-provide-motive-newtown-massacre-article-1.1266643
Hardly anyone buys the newspaper anymore. In fact, I have never bought one. Information is now easily attained through Internet access. Most news sources have stopped using objective journalism. In objective journalism, “ modern reports strive to maintain a neutral attitude toward the issue”, take Fox 5 news for example (Media & Culture.) The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a tragic event in which Adam Lanza shot twenty children and six adults. In the CNN article, “Sandy Hook shooting: What happened?” it breaks it up into three categories. The first category is the “ Before events at the school.” It claims that Adam had shot his mother before going to Sandy Hook Elementary. They describe the guns as a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle and pistols. They even show pictures. With the pictures it doesn’t leave room for imagination. They are showing the guns upfront and the horror that went along with them. “The gunman used an assault weapon to literally shot an entrance into the building,” said Connecticut Gov.Dannel Malloy. “Inside the school”, they show a diagram of what the school looks like. The article describes two teachers going out to see what the shots were about and only one returning. Children were rushed into bathrooms and closets to hide. In one classroom, he shot fourteen students and one pregnant teacher. In another room, he shot a teacher and six first graders. The last category is “ First responders arrive.” The first call coming in was at “approximately” 9:30 a.m. This article uses a lot of quotation marks. After the shooting, the gunman turned the gun on himself. Twenty students all ages 6 and 7 were killed. The article ends with describing how parents and loved ones all came together at the for support. This article was more informational than trying to move the audience. I feel that if this article wanted to strike true emotion they would have gotten quotes from some of the parents. I did like that fact that they used pictures and diagrams, made it more accurate. The next article I came across was one from the Daily News. The title being, “ Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza may have envisioned himself as Norwegian bomber Anders Breivik’s mass- murder rival.” Before even getting to words, there is a big blown up picture of the killer, Adam Lanza. In the picture he looks so young and innocent. His eyes are wide. It is hard to imagine that someone so weak and innocent looking could cause such a tragedy. Either this picture was made to make us feel bad for the killer, or to realize that anyone is capable of anything. This article focuses less on the tragic shooting and more on how law enforcements told CBS news that “Lanza saw himself as a competitor to Andres Breivik, the Norwegian man who killed 77 people in a series of attacks in 2011.” This article is about what might have caused the attack rather tan focusing on the victims. They then go on to display a big blown up picture of Andres Breivik and describe his situation. They then state, “ The troubled 20 year old has been described by family friends as a lovely young man who isolated himself in his bedroom for hours, sometimes days, playing graphically violent video games. To me this article is making excuses for the murders, trying to blame video games for the event.
ReplyDeleteCampbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lanza-rival-norwegian-bomber-anders-breivik-article-1.1267411
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting
Objectivity in the news is becoming harder and harder to find because people seem to like to read news that validates their opinions and stay away from stations that disagree. “…the more a newspaper appeared to take sides on its front pages, the more its readership base grew…” (Campbell page 228). To me this is a dangerous thing because it causes people to become somewhat ignorant about topics. With that being said I looked into these articles and chose the New York Times because they’re known for being a more liberal news source and the New York Post, known for having more conservative views.
ReplyDeleteOn December 14th 2012 the nation watched in disbelief as the horror of the Sandy Hook shooting unfolded. With every news station that reported the horror came different deliveries and descriptions of the events. Since the Sandy Hook shooting involved such young children I believed that any respectable newspaper or news station with morals would be careful on the details they gave the public. I chose the articles “Mad man kills 20 children at Connecticut elementary school, sending shock waves across US” (New York Post) and “Children Were All Shot Multiple Times with a Semiautomatic, Officials say” posted (New York Times). These are two articles discussing the same topic, but delivering the information in very different ways. I chose these two newspapers before even reading any articles because I knew that the reporting would be vastly different and, given the New York Post’s reputation for having zero boundaries, I believed I would be discussing how gruesome they were and praising the way the New York Times discussed it. I was incredibly wrong. I began to read the New York Times article and when I got halfway through I stopped and checked which newspaper site I was on because I thought I may have started to read the Post’s article. I was surprised to see that the NYT opted to provide more details in harsh words than the infamous NYP. The NYP delivered the story with enough detail to leave the reader informed but without making their stomach turn. The NYT however, did not spare any detail and proceeded to give every gory detail of how the massacre unfolded. The Times said " the gunman in Connecticut blasted his way into the elementary school and then sprayed the children with bullets, first from a distance and then at close range, hitting some of them as many as 11 times, as he fired a semiautomatic rifle loaded with ammunition designed for maximum damage..." while the post simply said "A black-clad gunman stormed into a Connecticut elementary school yesterday and unleashed one of the worst mass killings in US history — executing 20 children, including many from a kindergarten class". Both of these articles remained objective and stuck solely to reporting the facts. The post opted for a more tasteful portrayal of the events at Sandy Hook while the NYT provided gory details to attract readers with morbid curiosity. Because the NYT is known to be a more liberal newspaper, they may have chosen to report the story this way to get a rise out of people and make them demand more gun control. If you read through the comments on the article, the main topic is gun control and people voicing their opinions about how in the United States, we should have more. The NYP article really tugged on your heart strings through quotes from the president, the governor and parents of the surviving students. I think this article’s goal was to emotionally attach the reader to the story and draw them in through details of people who were either at the school or responding to the massacre.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/gunman-kills-20-children-at-school-in-connecticut-28-dead-in-all.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&#comments
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/madman_slays_schoolkids_JQRllgHj1iNVdOHyasvB6I/0
I read several articles about Sandy Hook School Shooting and chose two articles written by CNN and WICKED LOCAL NEWTON.
ReplyDeleteCNN NEWS showed three parts of this accident. The first part is before events at the school. The criminal killed his mother before he went to school. It shows some pictures of three guns which killed many people and it talks about the details about how the gunman entered the school and what time the accident happened. He killed 20 students and 6 adults. Also, there is a map of this school. The second part is about inside the school. It talks about how the gunman killed people and what teachers did for children. The third part is the response from police. There are some statistical data and what people did after this event happened.
WICKED LOCAL NEWTON wrote about an 8-year old boy and the residents in the community where the accident happened. An 8 year-old boy recalled the accident but he could not remember it exactly. He talked about how he felt and what his teacher did during the accident. One of the residents said that he couldn’t believe this accident happened in this peaceful town.
The difference between these two articles is the focus. CNN was focusing on the accident; the fact. In contrast, WICKED LOCAL NEWTON was focusing on the people and how the person who involved in the accident felt. This difference was caused by the readers of each article. CNN is a big broad casting company; so many people who have different ideas will read their article. That’s why they had to focus on the fact. Because they have to keep their stand point neutral, they did not mention the feeling of residents in Newtown so much. On the other hand, WICKED LOCAL NEWTON is writing article for local community people. WICKED LOCAL NEWTON must care about the connection with local community. Therefore, they wrote the article from the viewpoint of local community people. Also, I think that CNN is more official and credible because there are many photos and data during the article. However, WICKED LOCAL is just from one kid's view. Everyone has different opinions and feelings. A kid is too small to remember this scary thing. He could not remember so clear. I think that he was just scared when he saw this scary thing happened, so maybe his opinion is a little bit not credible to know what actually happened in the accident.
Now, the trend of newspaper is changing. Even if it is local newspapers, many people can read the article from the internet. If we can get information on the internet, do we need a newspaper? Will the newspaper disappear from our daily lives? Also, the textbook says we were changing from a society in which the transmission of knowledge depended mainly on books, newspapers, and magazines to a society dominated by a mix of print, visual, and digital information (232). But I do not think newspaper will disappear. Newspaper is easy to read and you can take it to everywhere even if there is no Wi-Fi or 3G. You can show it to other people so quickly, you don't need to open computer or cellphone to find website. Also, Newspaper has a much longer history than internet or smartphone, so people can trust it. Also, newspaper historically functioned to “speak truth to power” by holding elected officials responsible and acting as a watchdog for democratic (219). Newspaper picked up the opinions of minority people and discriminated people. Newspaper is closely related to the history. I think newspaper is a culture. Locomotives changed into trains. Horse-drawn carriages changed into cars, but culture will continue and be preserved. Newspaper won’t disappear from our lives. Now, they are changing their shapes because of the appearance of the internet. Although they change their shapes to match the trend of the era, they will keep on playing a role as a watchdog for democratic.
Work Cited
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/newsnow/x1783183627/Connecticut-school-shooting-I-was-scared#axzz2MddjKQZe
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ReplyDeleteAs technology continues to dominate our society, older and established media outlets are becoming obsolete. The publisher of the New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger, stated, “We will stop printing the New York Times somewhere in the near future”. For the publisher of a major newspaper outlet like the New York Times to be admitting to immense struggle shows that most if not all news corporations are in a rapid decline. Sources other then newspapers and television are “increasingly taking over the roles of more traditional forms of news, helping to set the nation’s cultural, social, and political agendas” (Campbell 233). With the majority of individuals using Internet media outlets in today’s society, news corporations are forced to change their ways and target specific audiences in hope of a revival. The Sandy Hook shooting was an unfathomable tragic happening that took place on December 14, 2012. Our countries media outlets reported the event in various ways. The aforementioned New York Times published an article “Newton Debates School’s Fate after Shooting”. This New York Times article focused on the aftermath of the shooting and the feelings of local Newton residents. Numerous individuals were interviewed for the publishing, including parents of students who attended Sandy Hook. Opinions of residents varied, with some claiming the school would be a nightmare to ever step back into and others wanting their children to continue their education at the school in hope of creating new positive memories. CNN published an article named “Sandy Hook Shooting; What Happened?” This article was straight forward and to the point in explaining the horrific event at Sandy Hook. It listed the shooters name and weapons that were allegedly used, and provided several photos including a timeline of the events that transpired. Unlike the New York Times publishing, this article did not include an emotional aspect and a perspective from individuals affected. This CNN article provided readers the facts and nothing more.
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ReplyDeleteAn article I came across in the New Yorker titled “Lockdown” offered a different angle. This publishing briefly described the essential details of the shooting but focused predominantly on gun control. Several other shootings that occurred over the past year were discussed to emphasize the serious problem in our country. It is evident in reading this article that Jill Lepore, the author of the article, was in strong support of gun control. Jill firmly believed that gun control laws would produce a significant reduction in shootings and the immense fear instilled in citizens of the United States. In searching for an article that offered a different outlook on the gun control situation, I came across a publishing from Fox News titled “Dad of Sandy Hook Victim Gives Emotional Remarks on Gun Control”. Mark Mattioli suffered the loss of his six-year-old child in the Sandy Hook shooting. Mark in sharing his thoughts, felt that the lack of gun control laws in our country is not the problem. Mark stated “We need civility across our nation. What we’re seeing are symptoms of a bigger problem. This is a symptom. The problem is not gun laws. The problem is a lack of civility.” Mattioli feels that the bigger issue lies under the realm of an individual and his/her upbringing as well as the mental state of the individual.
In examining different media outlets and their reports, it is clear that biases play a huge role in determining what is published and what is not. Same events are reported in numerous ways with each offering diverse ideas, opinions and perspectives. With biased publishing’s and reports being thrown at us daily, it is essential to refer to multiple sources in trying to learn about any particular event or matter.
WORK CITED
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/nyregion/newtown-debates-the-fate-of-sandy-hook-elementary-school.html?_r=0
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
Lepore, Jill. "Lockdown." The New Yorker. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2013.
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/28/video-dad-of-sandy-hook-victim-gives-emotional-remarks-on-gun-control-saying-the-problem-is-not-gun-laws/#more-102846
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ReplyDeleteThe basis of a news article, is based on opinion more so than what actually happened. I am not saying that a news article is JUST opinion, but it seems that opinion is a major input in a news article. It is really impossible to get one straight opinion, obviously because like everything else, things are controversial in this world so it is pretty easy to create a story based on DIFFERENT contrasting opinions. In chapter seven of our reading, they use the term "citizen journalism" which is defined as "refers to people-activist amateurs and concerned citizens, not professional journalists who use the Internet and blogs to disseminate news and information (Chapter 7).
ReplyDeleteComing across a few very interesting articles about Sandy Hook, it is obvious that each newscaster attacks the issue with a different view point. In CBS news, the article is about some sort of "game" that Adam Lanza (The Killer) was playing in his scheme. "He takes that game room and completely blacks it out so you -- once you close the door, the only reality in that room was him and that TV screen with his tactical shooting game. (CBS)" A lot of this article is about how Lanza was influenced to do what he did, and what could have potentially caused his outburst of creating the terrible massacre that he did. "You had his mother -- who he had a very close relationship with throughout his life, but especially since the divorce because it was just them -- and she had just gotten a new boyfriend (CBS)." According toCBS, they thought that Lanza was "jealous" of the attention his mother was giving to her new boyfriend that it was a "wedge" in their relationship (CBS), and he wanted revenge. Other sources that CBS news thought could have influenced Lanza were other massacres he read about, and just his sad life that he lived. (CBS).
According to fox five, the difference between this article and the CBS article is they attacked in in a way to summarize play by play WHAT happened between the time Lanza arrived, to when he killed himself. It went from explaining that he left in a car to the Newtown where his mother was from, to walking into a school, killing the principal, and started firing open arm without thinking of what he was doing. This article, is more of a factual article, while the other one was more opinionated on how Lanza went about his mental state with killing (Fox 5).
In many cases, articles are one point perspective based, while an internet source is an "alternate" source, with many views. At this point in time, it is really hard to just get one perspective, and opinion because there are so many out there, but the best we could do is take each opinion, and create our own opinions with the facts we DO KNOW, and the opinions that are given publicly. In the two articles, the first one that article just wanted us to be AWARE of what happened, and what went on as it happened, and to feel the situation, and the second one was there to sort of creep us out with how people think when they create such a tragic event.
Nowadays the Internet and the new technology of getting news they are covering the newspaper and the TV news. In different words, you can get anything you want to know from Facebook, Twitter, E-mail, News websites, Cellphones … etc.
ReplyDeleteWith today's technology everything becomes in your hand even the world wide news with simple click into your phone or computer. “Big companies should understand that and stop the operation of printing newspapers and charge people to pay for the paywall.” (Campbell 247)That means if you didn’t pay you won’t have an access to read the daily news. Maybe in the future this way will be the official way to read the morning paywall with a cup of coffee. However, hackers won’t pay for that and they will try by different ways to hack the site, so they can read it with a free cost. Some people enjoy reading in the old style. Especially the elderly people sixty five years and above. Some of the old people feel hard with using the new technology such as smartphones and computers. However, that doesn’t mean we have to get rid of newspapers, because people have different taste of getting everything including news. The different taste of getting everything is the reason of getting news through the new technology nowadays and without it we wouldn’t have “News” on the internet like what we have today.
The Sandy Hook School shooting was a very sad news to hear about. Most of newspapers and TV news were talking about this issue and what is the cause of shooting at that school? Should we illegalize guns? Did the shooter had a mental problem? These are some of questions that people were concerned about. And they need to get answers. According to New York Times, people were debating about the issue of closing the school, because of the shooting that happened. Children were afraid to get back to school after the shooting. In the other hand, parents were afraid to send their children back to school. Most of parents were agree to shut down the school. Stephanie Carson, a parent of a son who was at school on the time of shooting said, “School should be knocked down.” (Rivera) She also said, “She cannot ask her son or anybody to get back to the Sandy school after the shooting happened.” (Rivera) The story that NY times were telling it has an emotional affect by posting the people responds and how they felt about the shooting issue, because people were very sad about what happened at Sandy school. However, there’s a question here why the shooter shot himself after killing a bunch of people? Sometimes we face some issues in our daily life and some of those issues that we faced it might need to think about it in your brine and to avoid your heart’s emotion. This issue was a challenging for the brain and for the heart too. For the brain that we still don’t know why the shooter shot himself and for the heart we don’t know why those kids and school staff were killed? He might have a mental problem, but this is not our issue. Our case is why did we let this happened? Why people always try to work something out after a big disaster? Why don’t we beware of those things? We seemed like we don’t know, but the fact is we all know it will happen soon or later.
To be continued
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/15/sandy-hook-shooting_n_2306479.html
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57570009/sandy-hook-shooter-adam-lanza-blacked-out-game-room-bedroom/
continued
ReplyDeleteLet’s take the story from a different sight that people were also talking about gun controlling. Some people want the gun to be illegal just for the personal safety. Should we illegalize guns? No matter what the answer is. The criminals will never stop murdering people and the only people who will be not able to use the gun is the lawful people. Huffington Post Article, was focusing on gun controlling. According to Huffington “a parents of a seven years old child, went to the President of the U.S Barak Obama to talk with him about this issue of gun controlling.” (Maddock) They also went on national television to debate about the issue of gun controlling. They went there to show people how it is important to protect your child and your community from this disaster. Huffington took this issue from very emotional way to grab the readers’ attention.
To sum up, both of those article has an issue to talk about. The New York times’ were try to grab your attention by talking about how people felt about the shooting and what they react to it. On the other hand, Huffington were focusing on the gun controlling and what if we legalize it and vice versa. For me I think the government has right to say who can own the gun and who cannot own it. Like in my country, guns are illegal and if they caught you having gun. They might take you to spend 3 years in the jail and this is without pointing on somebody, but if you point the gun to somebody you might be in jail for 15 years. The story I was going along with is the gun controlling. Actually, I didn’t have any emotions about what the parents did for the gun control, but I think this is the right thing to do to stop the crime.
Works Cited:
Rivera, Ray. “Newtown Debates School’s Fate After Shooting” New York Times. January 13, 2013Web. March 6, 2013.
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina G. Fabos. Media And Culture, An Introduction Mass Communication. 8. Boston: Bedford/st Martins, 2012. Print.
Maddock, Preston. “Ron DeSantis Put On Spot By Sandy Hook Parents At Florida Town Hall”
Huffington Post article. February 20, 2013. Web. March 6, 2013
The Sandy Hook shooting was arguably the worst school shooting to ever happen in American history. 26 people, 20 of whom were children only 6 or 7 years old, lost their lives that fateful day in Newtown. Naturally, the event was covered by the full plethora of media outlets; newspapers, T.V. shows, radio broadcasts, and websites all reported on the event, even internationally. The shooting was a horrible tragedy, and in its aftermath has sparked a huge debate over gun control and created a sharp divide between pro and anti-gun control supporters. In an article from MSNBC, the author makes it clear from the beginning that they want more gun control laws enacted in the wake of the shooting. The article focuses almost exclusively on the issue of gun control, and spends a good amount of time Demonizing the NRA, saying things like the days of the NRA "holding our country hostage are coming to an end." The article spends much more time talking about punishing the NRA and having stricter gun control than the actual facts of the shooting, which shows it’s focusing on its own agenda over informing people. In comparison to the MSNBC article, The Blaze has two articles itself that both argue gun control isn’t the issue at the heart of the Sandy Hook shooting. They both stress the point that they feel more laws wouldn’t stop more shootings or violence like this. One Sandy Hook victim’s father says that America needs to accept personal responsibility, and that this isn’t the fault of gun laws. He uses Chicago as an example; a city that has stricter than average gun laws, but still see’s increased violence. Compared to the MSNBC article, this one clearly focuses more on Sandy Hook rather than the gun control issue as a whole. What I took away from both was that the MSNBC article was trying to scare its readers into being against the NRA and guns, while The Blaze’s articles were trying to appeal to the reader’s emotions and show them that even parents of the shooting think more gun laws aren’t necessary. I think that the reporting on this issue from all the different news sites covering it are all more focused on convincing others of their own beliefs rather than being a “factual report that maintains a neutral attitude toward the issue”, as said in the textbook. This is a major problem with news sources, it always has been and unfortunately seems like it always will be. This just shows another reason why it’s important to study the media and not just take what it may say from any one source at face value.
ReplyDeleteMSNBC : http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/28/in-post-sandy-hook-america-gun-control-gets-its-first-test-with-voters/
The Blaze: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/04/parent-of-sandy-hook-student-lambastes-gun-control-advocates-wonders-if-they-failed-american-history-there-is-something-called-the-constitution/ & http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/28/the-problem-is-not-gun-laws-watch-the-emotional-speech-by-a-sandy-hook-victims-dad-that-got-a-standing-ovation/
In the CNN article “Sandy Hook shooting: What happened?” the author remains completely objective. Facts were thrown at the readers rather than dragged out – like most articles. The author was not bias in the least. Details of the shooting were merely listed, and in chronological order. First the author discusses what happened before the shooting; including how the gunman entered the building and what guns he was carrying. The next section of the article reports on what exactly happened inside the building along with the time that shots were fired. Finally, the ending paragraph incorporates the police and their responding actions to sum up the article. Nothing was overly explained in the CNN article, it stayed true to its title by scratching the surface of what happened. The author didn’t go in depth, nor did he or she discuss anyone’s feelings about the travesty. There wasn’t one drop of pathos throughout the entire article, only facts. This kind of writing is referred to as objective journalism. Its goal is to “distinguish factual reports from opinion columns” (Media & Culture pg. 229). This style has a more scientific approach to journalism, and at the same time, maintains a neutral attitude towards the subject matter. Objective journalism is supposed to inform its readers rather than play with their heartstrings. Personally, I respect this kind of writing. I give objective writers a lot of credit for creating a piece without including their own thoughts. It’s purely professional, which is what the media should be like, instead of the constant brainwashing of what we know as the media today.
ReplyDeleteThe second article that I chose, “Newtown Weighs Future Of Sandy Hook Elementary After School Shooting,” is the complete opposite of the first article I talked about. The title gives away the fact that it’s going to be an emotional read prior to actually reading the article. Unlike the objective journalism in the first article, the second source I read was saturated in pathos. Even one of the first sentences includes the words “passionately” and “emotional.” The article then goes on to introduce multiple witnesses who were directly affected by the shooting. These people discuss their children’s futures with Sandy Hook Elementary and weather or not they believe if it would be a good idea for them to return there. The article actually never describes what happened the morning of the shooting, it only brings up the aftermath. The author even went further down the pathos road and brought up the Virginia Tech incident. The tone to this article was also very hypothetical; one could even argue that there was no true purpose to it. To end the emotional trip taken by each reader through this reading, there are pictures remembering those who were taken from their loved ones. The album of pictures is entitled “Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.” This personally disturbed me and definitely took away some of the emotional impact. It seemed like the photographer casually named the album, as if it was a Facebook event. The overall purpose behind the article was to get the readers emotionally involved and attached to the tragedy and its victims. It definitely does its job.
Works Cited
First article: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
Second Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/newtown-weighs-future-of-_n_2468817.html#slide=1894030
Media & Culture Textbook
Our access to media increases almost every day of our lives. A printed newspaper is becoming less and less valuable because there are so many other ways to access the information. New technology enhances the way people can obtain information. Technology such as computers, cell phones, iPads and other tablets have played a huge role to the downfall of newspapers. In my opinion, social media puts the cherry on top. I can simply go to my Facebook or Twitter, and view almost everything that I need to through the social media sites. Sometimes I can even get the full story without having to look any further past my twitter. The best part is, I can access the app right from my phone. Social media sites are even enhancing and improving their sites so information can be easily obtained at all times. The textbook states, “Rather than subscribing to a traditional paper, many readers begin their day on the iPads, smartphones, or computers scanning a wide variety of news Web sites, including those of print papers, cable news channels, newsmagazines, bloggers, and online-only news organizations” (Campbell 233). It’s as if there is no need for a printed newspaper anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe elementary school shooting at Sandy Hook was all over the news for weeks. It was one of the worst tragedies in American history. To compare and contrast I read an article from the New York Times, which I consider to be a more liberal biased paper and I read an article from the New York Post, a more conservative paper. The New York Times article begins with a picture that is very dark, and their are adults standing in a circle with their candles lit. To open up the article, the author, James Barron, goes right into the shooting. He says, “The gunman in the Connecticut shooting blasted his way into the elementary school and then sprayed the children with bullets...” It goes into describe that the students were shot multiple times, so the intention of the gunman was certainly murder. Of the 26 that were gunned down at the school, their were 12 girls, 8 boys (all 1st graders), and 6 adults (all women). The article then directed its attention towards some of the parents and other who spoke out. Some parents spoke about their children, but also wanted to let the media know that they do not want to be remembered by the tragedy and they do not want to be defined that way. It then went into how the shooting happened but not why. Adam Lanza, the shooter was then presented as well as the weapons used. He mentioned the story of Victoria Soto, a hero. Towards the end, it describes reports over transmission through the police and ambulances and they describe that Lanza started his day by murdering his mother and heading towards the school. To end the article, the imposing questions leaves everyone wondering, “Why?”
...Continued
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the New York Times Article, the New York Post article is written by 3 different people and starts off with “It started like any normal December day at Sandy Hook Elementary School.” Instead of getting right to the point like Barron did, they talk about Santa and the holiday concert that just passed. Also, they introduce the shooter as soon as they introduce that their had been a shooting at the school. To take note, the people they interviewed that were viewed in the article just stated how horrendous and terrifying it was, where the Times article went into a little bit more detail as to what happened. It explains how they heard screaming in the school and that someone took over the intercom and everything else that happened within the school. Saying that, most of the people that were featured in the article were people from inside the school, teachers and kids. The article doesn’t really have closure and ends with a quote from an 8 year old. As a reader, I enjoyed the Times article better because I felt like it went into more depth. It featured a variety of people and touched on almost all the aspects of the shooting. The New York Post only featured people inside the school and covered what happened at that very moment. I believe the New York Times did an excellent job and fully covered what needed to be covered. I felt like the New York Post left some important information out. The closure of the New York Times article was also superb because it was a question almost every American was wondering at the time. They had no problem in reporting everything they felt was necessary and everything the public deserved to know. There seemed to be a narrow-minded aim behind the New York Post article, and that seemed to be the big difference between the two industries.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/bullets_going_down_the_hall_3PRp8i1ykCDSsoodxfwXSI
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/nyregion/gunman-kills-20-children-at-school-in-connecticut-28-dead-in-all.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Textbook
I believe the only way to fairly portray the news is through objective journalism. Just stating the facts without any bias or other one sided opinions is the primary way that the public can obtain the correct news without their opinions being skewed. Unfortunately, a big portion of the news has become just the opposite. Some has become biased, such as FOX News, and a lot of what the public sees is public relations. Whatever the industries reasons for doing so can vary, for instance in class on Monday we viewed the film “Bowling for Columbine” which included scenes where the question was brought up about only violence being portrayed on the news. Every news source has different techniques they use to portray stories. The Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy was a major news event that swept through the nation. Every paper in America wrote about it and each used a different technique in order to produce the story.
ReplyDeleteThe CNN article, “Sandy Hook Shooting: What Happened” paints an extremely vivid picture to the reader as to what happened in the school on December 14th. The article is definitely objective and is separated into three parts that include the before events at the school, inside the school, and when first responders arrived. The before events at the school described details of the shooting which included what guns the shooter used, how many students and teachers were in the school, and how the gunman entered the building. The second part of the article details the events that occurred when the shooter entered the school. This section described what classrooms the gunman entered and the reaction of everyone in the building along with protocol. The last section described what happened after the police arrived at the school. This portion of the article has an actual dispatch audio from the scene and described how the gunman took his life after the first responders arrived.
A CBS News article wrote a story using a different technique in the article, “Sandy Hook Shooter Motivated by Violent Video Games, Norway Massacre.” This article shows skepticism on the motives and goals of the shooter. The article claims that CBS News has found evidence that the shooter had an obsession with a Norwegian killer and he tried to kill more people than him. The article also claims that the shooter had links to violent video games such as Call of Duty. In my opinion this is all just speculation and a subjective form of writing. There weren’t other reports that linked the killer with the Norwegian killer and violent video games.
The articles clearly have two different angles for approaching the Sandy Hook Tragedy. The first story took more of an objective view of the story as they just simply presented the facts and statistics. The way they wrote the story I feel that their aim was to make the reader feel saddened by what happened. Their purpose also could be to simply inform people of what exactly happened on that December morning, many people were curious to the exact events that occurred. Also, I think that this article was intended to paint a picture for the viewers from the way they presented the facts. The second article was definitely different in their writing style. As previously stated, it presented a lot of subjective facts from CBS. Speculation and ideas that were created were definitely the basis for this story and it does not revolve around clear cut facts. I think the publishers intentions were to raise questions for the reader. Motives? Shooter’s background? Mental health of the shooter? These are all questions that one can ask after reading the second article and I believe that was the writer’s intention.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sandy-hook-shooter-motivated-by-422271
I decided to compare two different newspapers of different political ideologies. The first being the New York Times a more liberal publication. The other The Wall Street Journal a conservative biased newspaper. Some similarities to note on both reports, they both seem to try to explain what happened. They both describe the shooter looking to capture the emotions of the murderer. Both publications looked into the family history and life of Adam Lanza, the shooter. However, both had different reporting styles that made me have different reactions to the story.
ReplyDeleteI first read the report “Dozens Killed in Conn. School Shooting “ by Tamer El-Gohbashy and Deviln Barett from the Wall Street Journal. The report started off with the facts right off the bat, twenty seven found dead, the name of the shooter, and where the incident took place. From there, the reporter went into the police findings thus far and then turned their attention towards heroes of the event. A school psychiatrist and a teacher who kept kids calm and did their best to help keep the children safe. After that, the authors then go on to get quotes from a parent and discuss briefly President Obama’s remarks. Then, there is some investigation to who exactly the shooter was. They went to the internet as a source and recovered that he was an honors student a long time ago. They went to neighbors of Lanza to try to get as much information as they kid on the shooter. The article concludes with the acknowledgement that this maybe the worst school shooting in the United States. The article ends on a gloom note, stating a message sent to parents about new security measures to parents prior to the start of the school year.
The New York Times article titled “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut” by James Barrron took a more creative and storytelling way of describing the events. Starting out with how the massacre unfolded more so than the police findings. They described how Lanza got into the building. They incorporated the police report into the story rather just getting quotes from the officer. I think the most impactful moment from this article is when Barron describes the reaction of the children. Everyone witnessing the event was disgusted and saddened, the description is just horrifying. After describing the events, the author talks about the aftermath and reactions from various leaders such as President Obama and Lt. J. Paul Vance spokesman for the Connecticut State Police Department. The article ends with a quote from Craig Ansman a parent who understood that this tragedy was going to be around for a long time.
There are many reasons for the difference in reporting styles. The New York Times took more of a literacy journalistic approach. They used descriptive detail and a set series of events in order to convey facts as a story. The Wall Street Journal used more of a conflict oriented journalistic approach. They were looking to report on social norms that resulted of the conflict. The gloomy ending especially implies that the authors felt that there should be more school security. Besides the obvious that these two publications promote different perspectives and agendas, these papers are trying to appeal to their audience. The Wall Street Journal gave details about the exact weapons used and turned to a police officer as one of their sources. Compared to the New York Times, they were trying to preserve their story more so than talk to witnesses at the beginning. Out of the two different styles, I think both are wrong and not correct. Although it is easier to digest a story, I think that news reporting should be the facts and that’s it. Dry, yes, accuracy though is way more important than entertainment value.
Sources
Media and Culture
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=1&ref=nyregion&_r=0
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323297104578179271453737596.html
The Sandy Hook Shooting was all over the news for days, and even weeks. It was such a terrible tragedy that it had Facebook talking about it nonstop for days on end. The fact that it was an elementary school made it worse than it already was, considering that twenty-seven people, mostly children, were killed. The NY Times article “Dec. 14 Updates on Connecticut School Shooting” tells the readers a little about the shooting, or basically the main points. Within this story are several different parts to it including the gunman’s parents and a little part about Mayor Bloomberg. These different parts all have some relation to the main story, For example, the mentioning of Mayor Bloomberg was about his beliefs about gun control. Gun control is a major issue in today’s world and is a topic that is brought up when something like this happens. There is even a speech from our president in this article. Obviously there is a lot to say about this tragedy. The author wrote this the way he did to let the readers know how it has affected the city, state, and surrounding states. Also, the author mentioned how it affected politicians who brought up topics like gun control. He wants us to feel really bad that little kids were killed from a crazy guy that was only twenty years old. Bad things happen to good people, and in this case, it was a horrible tragedy that happened.
ReplyDeleteThe other article I chose had a different tone of voice than the first one. “In objective journalism, which distinguishes factual reports from opinion columns, modern reporters strive to maintain a neutral attitude toward the issue or event they cover; they also search out competing points of view among the sources for a story” (Campbell 229). The author did not talk about his opinion at all and stayed with the facts of the story. Along with these facts were quotes from numerous people like witnesses, family members and police officers. Many neighbors and witnesses were quoted on what they did or where they were when the first shots were heard. The author was making us feel like we were actually there, with all the sad family members, victims and witnesses. It was a horrible tragedy and it was well reported with information on both the perpetrator and the victims from the school. Seeing what has happened here at Sandy Hook should get more people and kids to learn how awful guns can be. Tragedies like this can show how gun control is such a big topic today and why politicians are working real hard on it. We definitely need stricter gun laws.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school/
http://articles.courant.com/2012-12-14/news/hc-police-responding-to-incident-in-newtown-20121214_1_lanza-home-newtown-home-labor-day-parade/2
An article in the New York Times titled Nation’s Pain Is Renewed, and Difficult Questions Are Asked Once More, by William Glaberson, compares the shooting at Sandy Hooks Elementary School to previous mass shootings throughout the nation. Some of the compared shootings include the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, a shooting committed by a 14 year old at Heath High School in 1997, a school that was blown up killing 44 people in 1927, and more. In this article, Glaberson asked the begging question of why mass shootings like this keep occurring. He stated that majority of these killers had histories of mental illness. In addition, they were all said to have displayed “warning signs” that went undetected by their family and friends. Gablerson also stated how “their sometimes clear signs of psychological deterioration that was left unaddressed by the country’s mental health system” is why mass shooting are an extremely tragic and recurring part of our nation’s history. Glaberson also took the factor of gun control into consideration towards the explanation for mass shootings. For example, he discussed that whenever a mass shooting occurs, it will automatically renew the nation-wide political debate about civilians access to guns, what security practices to be more significantly enforced or added, and deeper, more thorough evaluations of who guns are sold. At the end of the article, Glaberson supports his argument with a New York Times analysis from 2000 that pointed out some main warning signs that multiple killers of past attacks had displayed such as marked up maps of their desired territories and conversations with family and friends where their targeted location, date and victims were discussed. Finally, he noted Columbia University’s director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness plans better protect victims of future attacks. These plans include limiting school violence, limiting unknown entry into schools and developing an explicit disaster plan that proposes strategies to lock down schools and pursuing close ties with local police. These implementations were devised because of the unfortunate truth that there is no way to completely prevent random acts of terror and violence, like that of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, from happening in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe article Senate Hearing on Gun Control Turns Emotional by Eyder Peralta is about Neil Heslin, the father of one of the Sandy Hook victims, testifying during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the attack. Neil Heslin lost his six year old son Jesse in the attack. Although he expressed to the Senate that Jesse was the love of his life and the only family he had left, he additionally stated that he was not testifying with the expectation of receiving sympathy, but instead to speak up for his son. Heslin also stated his concern for stricter regulation of weapons in the nation, despite his support of the Second Amendment. Peralta later quoted Heslin in saying “He said no one needed an assault weapon and "no person should have to go through" what he is going through.”
(continued)
ReplyDeleteThe article Nation’s Pain Is Renewed, and Difficult Questions Are Asked Once More can easily be classified as objective journalism(Campbell p.229) because Glaberson used factual reports, instead of opinions, and retained a neutral attitude toward the Sandy Hooks shooting. Glaberson made sufficient use of all the available factual knowledge on the shooting by comparing it to previous mass shootings, potential reason why they occur and what can be done about them. He even realistically stated in his article that tragedies like that of the Sandy Hooks shooting are inevitable and there is no way society can prevent them from occurring. The goal for readers of this article were to strictly to inform and attempt to explain the tragedy from a realistic perspective. Glaberson’s approach of analyzing the incident completely differs from that of Peralta’s in his article due to Peralta’s use of emotion and empathy. In addition to summarizing Heslin’s testimony at the hearing, Peralta attached a video of his testimony. Needless to say, I personally found the video very difficult and upsetting to watch because I was able to visibly see Heslin’s pain and hear the heartbreak in his voice. The goal of this article was to show the pure anguish the families of the victims of Sandy Hook are experience. This article additionally used emotion and empathy for the victims and their families to increase support towards Neil Heslin’s testimony of stricter regulation on weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/sandy-hook-shooting-forces-re-examination-of-tough-questions.html
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/27/173073842/senate-hearing-on-gun-control-turns-emotional
In today’s day and age, people are starting to cut down on reading newspapers, and are starting to get their news from online sources. Recently, there was a tragic event that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School and many online news news articles wrote different types of articles about this tragedy.
ReplyDeleteCNN decided to approach this by writing about how it exactly went down. In their article, Sandy Hook Shooting: What Happened?, CNN goes through the phases of how it all went down. The article begins by explaining what the shooter did before he reached the school. It talks about the guns he used and his method of breaking into the school. It than proceeds to talk about what he did inside the school. About how he went into several classrooms and killed innocent children and teachers. It lastly talks about how the police finally made it to the scene. Once they arrived, the gunman took his own life before the police had a chance to get to him. Also, how the police and firefighters escorted the students and faculty to the nearby firehouse. This article is an example of objective journalism, which means to distinguish factual reports from opinions (Media and Culture, 229). The entire article is a bunch of facts that were put into a timeline to help show what occurred. I feel that they decided to write this article in order to tell the public exactly what happened. Their aims were to make it so nobody can be confused of what happened. I think they want their readers to feel sorry for the ones that were killed because it shows that they had no idea what was to come, and couldn’t prepare for it at all. (CNN)
The New York Times decided to do a different approach. In the article, Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut, by James Barron, he not only summarizes what occurred, but also mentions a bunch of reactions from several different sources. The article begins by Barron summarizing the events that happened that morning. Similar to the CNN article, they both state the same facts about who was murdered. It than goes in to talk about how nobody understood why he would do such a horrible thing. There are several quotes that basically say nobody knows why he did it. The rest of the article talks about all the other facts. People explained what they were doing in the school during the time of the shooting in terms of hiding, and the security system that the school had were some things that were also discussed in this article. I think this reporter decided to report it like this, because he wanted to put in all the details of the shooting, and thoughts from the survivors. He wanted to show the audience how terrible this was. This article differs from the CNN article because outside interviews were used to show more sympathy. (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
As society continues down an advanced technological path, information is now being publicized at the mere reach of our fingertips. From the Daily News to BBC, multitudes of different resources are allowing us to analyze and read their passages, obtain information, and then formulate our own opinions upon each situation. This is the time of virtual self-expression, uprising, and a new age of understanding. The imbalanced information available between Internet bloggers and a single subscription to the New York Times, however, creates less viewpoint availability – a plague of tunnel vision.
ReplyDeleteWhereas generations before newspapers stated mainly the facts, sole perspective currently comes into play with evident usage of syntax utilized to impact specific audiences and render a set of emotions. “The loss of papers, readers, advertising and inventor confidence raises significant concerns in a nation where daily news has historically functioned to ‘speak the truth’ by holding elected officials responsible and acting as a watchdog for democratic life.” (Pg. 221)
In a comparison between two different articles on the Sandy Hook shooting, one contains the diversity and mode for impact and “factual” understanding, whereas the other conjures and searches for the answer to the unknown. BBC’s article, “Connecticut Shooting: How it Happened”, gives a step by step process of how the tragic event, inputting strong words such as evil, fear, rampage, menace, and even providing a background of Adam Lanza’s personal life. BBC drove in deep by placing the line, “the events which began on a seemingly ordinary Friday morning, only a few days away from the Christmas holiday”, one of the most popular and loved holidays by children all across the world. The most interesting aspects of this article is the constant inflection of sorrow, of course this event is terrible and ruined so many peoples lives, but the news wants to consistently pull at the heartstrings. They added in the family of the kids were never able to see the bodies of their kids, this paper aims to strike fear into all families hearts, as well as advocates for school safety and laws upon gun control.
The CNN report, “Sandy Hook Shooter Tried to Emulate Norway Massacre”, implies possible reasons for Adam Lanza’s actions. Through the violence of video games, and Lanza’s obsession with the Norway Massacre, were the solutions given to all those left in the unknown. Lanza has been labeled as “highly competitive”, wanted nothing more than to top Breivik's death toll, which is incredibly ludicrous. No one will ever understand the intentions, or the mindset of Adam Lanza and what made him decide to shock the world, yet new reporters and television fell the need to give people falsified answers to ease a little bit of pain. It’s exceedingly understandable, but your simply pitting people with erroneous information; this article aided in the doubt and uncertainty of all those so completely confused by this man’s actions. The bottom line is we will never know juts what Lanza was thinking, don’t highlight reasons you “think” are correct. It also adds links to the blueprints or tips on how other countries handle a massacre – an astoundingly pointless attribute to any article talking about the horrible loss of people daughters and sons.
- Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20738998
- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hunt-motive-sandy-hook-elementary-shooting-article-1.1220914
- http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/19/justice/connecticut-newtown-shooting
The three articles that stuck out the most to me were from the many news sources were from The New York Times, Fox News, and The New Yorker. All of the articles stood out to me for their own specific reasons. The New York Times article called “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut” and The Yorker article “Lockdown” stood out because I found the contrast in the styles in which the two articles were written to be quite intriguing. The Fox News article stood out because it was completely and totally useless, biased, and poorly written. While the other two sources I previously mentioned were edited and refined to perfection in a way that accentuated each of the different styles, The Fox News article had missing and misspelled words, punctuation errors, and some phrases were even typed twice--one right after the other. It was also quite irritating that the third, fourth, fifth and ninth articles on the Fox News search page for Sandy Hook were all about NASCAR and how it would be sponsoring Sandy Hook. How much more irrelevant in the grand scheme of things can you get? The New York Times article and the The New Yorker article both summarized the events that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary with facts that
ReplyDeletecorrelated to what had been reported by law enforcement. Both articles included the gunman’s name and course of action, the number of people killed and other important facts that the reader would want to know. The major differences between the two are the length of the articles and they ways in which the two articles are written. The New Yorker article is much shorter than the other article. It includes many of the same facts as The New York Times article but it is written in a much more stylish way. The way that the writer plays with the language she uses to describe certain things and paint a picture for the reader in “Lockdown” is vastly different from “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School”. The “Lockdown” article reads, “There is no solace to be found, not in the crushing, aching sympathy felt by everyone on hearing the story, not in the candlelight vigils..” (Lepore). After this line more facts are revealed within the article before it again reads “Children--barely older than toddlers--will be drilled, will be taught what to do when the shooting starts. Duck, hide under your desk and be still” (Lepore). As informative and well as the article is the point of this article is to pull heart strings. The paper was aiming to affect the reader so deeply that they would want to do something to stop things like this from reoccurring. The daunting imagery that the writer creates is right on the money, and she is so stylish in her word choice and sentence structure. I for one know that I had no trouble vividly picturing a child huddled underneath her desk; that picture is exactly what the “Lockdown” article was intended for. The “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School” article is almost opposite in its approach to the reader. The article itself is much greater in length and does not often employ the use of impeccable imagery or carry its own voice and sense of style. The York Times article is strictly business. In fact it actually refers back to a section in Ch. 7 of the Media & Culture book called “Just the Facts, Please”. The article maintains a “neutral attitude toward the issue or event they cover..” and is actually almost perfectly fitting of the label term the “inverted pyramid style” (Campbell 229). Within that style the writing is “Often stripped of adverbs and adjectives.. and begin with the most dramatic or newsworthy information” (Campbell 229). The New York Times article is formatted so that the bulk of the important information is at the top of the article and the extraneous details that are not exactly a necessity are placed at the bottom. There was no emotion in the writing and no attempts at making the reader think or feel. The article “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School” was written purely to inform the reader of the events that occurred that morning at Sandy Hook Elementary.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/lockdown.html
ReplyDeleteCampbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
“Easy Chair: Bloodsport" by Thomas Frank was published in the March edition of Harper’s magazine. It is written from the first person point of view with a strong voice of opinionMost of the article is about Media’s role in promoting violence and how, “The American film industry is the second great pillar of the gun culture”. The author's first strong statement is that he believes that “gun control works His most interesting early description is of the “official catechism” of the NRA. This includes quotes from Wayne LaPierre “lavishly compensated face” of the NRA. The main elements of "the catechism" are that gun owners are victims demonized by the media, certain weapons are miscategorized, and that American leaders are soft on crime. Getting into his main topic, he agrees with LaPierre, when he states that: “Media companies obviously do compete to project violence into our homes”. As supporting examples he gives The Matrix (1999), Gangster Squad (2013), and Dirty Harry. These are all films that include graphic ubiquitous violence. They adhere to the line of the NRA, described well by the author as, movies in which we are shown repeatedly “spineless liberals with a soft spot for the murderers and rapists in our midst who leave society’s dirty work to the big man with the big gun”. The line followed here helps draw in that specific audience from the quote in the book. The people in that audience might include anyone who traffics in the gun culture and it might include Charlton Heston. It is definitely a specific audience, though, one with a very well defined and exclusionary set of values. Frank sums up by saying that it is journalism's duty to report on movies and cultural events as they are really perceived and experienced: “to tell the world what god-awful heaps of cliché and fake profundity and commercialized sadism this industry produces. The Newtown Bee is a hundred year old or more paper that is published by the fourth generation of a family in the CT town where the Sandy Hook shootings took place. The Bee’s article published on February 26th covers the Vice President’s foray into the struggle over gun control. There are multiple direct quotes of the VP and others. The Bee is very straightforward, no-nonsense journalism. There is only a bit of encouragement for the readers. An affirmation or two can found, like when Biden praises the State Assembly, “I've never seen an array of officials as talented…as right in this state”. There is opinion here, but it is probably more of a collective opinion. Biden offers that, ““We have to speak for those beautiful children who died…Enough is enough…We have an obligation to act”. This is surely the feeling and belief of anyone in the local area who might be reading the paper. It is a reporting based on its audience and less on its author. Of course this type of reporting is exactly what the readers want. They don’t need to be justified in how they feel. They are justifiably outraged. And, it is perhaps important that the local paper maintains this traditional appearance of reliability and honesty. What a subscriber who lives in Newtown might be willing to give up when they are reading Harper’s they may want to hold on to when they are reading their local paper. Certainly, in a crisis there is something to be said for honesty and minimalism. And then there are motives from an economic perspective. As John Geddes managing editor of the NYT says on page 239 in the textbook: “We received no extra space for 9/11. We received no extra space for the Iraq War. We’re all doing this within our budget. It is a zero-sum game. If something is more important, something else may be a little less important, a little less deserving of space”.
ReplyDeleteFrank, T. (2013), "Easy chair Bloodsport", Harper's, Mar. pp.4-7.
Gorosko, A. (2013), "Vice president urges strengthened gun control", The
Newtown Bee, Feb 26.
When I took journalism in high school, my first lesson was on the inverted-pyramid. The concept was to write about the most important details of an event first and slowly add more and more details. The purpose being that it was easier to read because most people only want the main facts and it was easier to edit if the article was too long to fit into the newspaper. Since the goal is to remain brisk, adjectives and adverbs are unnecessary for this style so the articles became objective (Campbell 229). I tend to forget that objectivity and short terse sentences died out into extinction within modern journalism. So, the first two sources that I went to were the NY Times and Fox News. I knew that the NY Times were more liberal and Fox News was more conservative, but I didn’t expect to see any extreme differences on their reports of the Sandy Hook shooting. I was wrong. Instead of simply stating the facts of the shootings, the articles chose sides on the great gun control debate. Objectivity was not a concern for these news reports.
ReplyDeleteOn Fox News’ website I typed in “Sandy Hook Shooting” most of the results were articles about NRA sponsoring a NASCAR race and conspiracy theories on the shooting. Curious, I read one of the articles. The article just discussed the NRA sponsoring car dedicated to the students and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary. Nothing else was really discussed. But why would the NRA news be the first to pop under Sandy Hook shooting? Trying to be objective, I searched for an actual article on Sandy Hook only I couldn’t find any. None. I searched through about 7 pages and could not find one article describing the shooting. Instead, I found numerous articles on the controversies Sandy Hook brought up like gun control, mental health of children, safety within the schools…etc. It is not so much how Fox News reports rather than what they choose to report that is sketchy. They are more caught up in the controversies and debates rather than the actual news. There is no question which side they support on the gun control debate with their frequent mention of the NRA’s support for the victims of Sandy Hook. Fox News searches for the drama to report on to gain viewers.
TO BE CONTINUED...
(continued)
ReplyDeleteThe NY Times article, “Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut” was also interesting. Instead of stating the facts of the tragedy, the article formulates this brutal story that only incites fear. The harsh diction of article emphasizes horror of the shooting. The article opens up like this: “A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle killed 26 people — 20 of them children — in an attack in an elementary school in central Connecticut on Friday. Witnesses and officials described a horrific scene as the gunman, with brutal efficiency, chose his victims in two classrooms while other students dove under desks and hid in closets” (NY Times). If the article were objective it would read like this: “A 20-year-old man carrying semiautomatic pistols and rifles attacked an elementary school, in central Connecticut on Friday, killing 6 adults and 20 children. The worse of the attack was held within two classrooms.” Instead of this, the article contains harsh adjectives and phrases like “horrific”, “brutal”, “chose his victims”, and “armed” to emphasize the tragedy of the shooting. But what is the purpose of this? I think we already know that the deaths of 20 children are awful, why do we need to know that they hid under desks and in closets hoping to live? Why does semiautomatic needed to be repeated twice? The article incites fear, but with no explanation as to why the shooting happened. The only mention of the survivors of the shooting was a vague statement about the SWAT team escorting children out to their families, immediately followed by how many died, which is immediately followed by the types of guns used. The mentioning of Christmas being near the tragedy just indirectly builds an argument against guns. All of the literary elements used: contrast, repetition, diction, and imagery slyly protest against guns. It is no wonder why majority of the comments on the article discuss the need for gun control.
It is interesting to notice how and what Fox News and the NY Times choose to report on. Both add drama to the Sandy Hook shooting, but in different way and with different opinions. Fox News chooses to report on the various debates formed from the shooting with special attention to the NRA. The NY Times reported the shooting in a dramatized way that incited fear of guns. Although they used different techniques, both companies strived for the same goal—to increase their audience.
Works Cited:
http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/search?q=sandy%20hook%20shooting#refresh
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/03/04/nra-sponsoring-nascar-sprint-cup-race-at-texas/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina G. Fabos. Media And Culture, An Introduction Mass Communication. 8. Boston: Bedford/st Martins, 2012. Print.
When I either hear the news or read it, I prefer to just have the facts. Reporting the just the facts is a very hard to accomplish. The reason why it is hard is because everyone has an opinion. In today’s world it seems like there is a hidden agenda in everything that is reported. The hidden agenda could be a variety of things, from political motivations to selling a product. In our text book it explains a way that strives to report the facts. “In objective journalism, which distinguishes factual reports from opinion columns, modern reporters strive to maintain a natural attitude toward the issue or event they cover.” Objective journalism is how news should be covered because it is the only way to get the truth without any agendas. As we look into the sandy hook school shooting we find it very hard sometimes to keep to Objective journalism. There are many reasons why objectivity is hard to keep. One could be because we emotionally feel very compelled by the story and want others to share that emotion. When I read this article about the shooting from the New York Times, I felt the hurt and the angle this reporter was taking. “Many people here still remember the huge green footprints that once led up to the front entrance of Sandy Hook Elementary School. Children were told that they had been left by the Jolly Green Giant.” This article was about the shutting down of the school. As you read you could tell that this was a hard choice for the parents and teachers of this school. School is supposed to be remembered as the place where you got your core fundamentals as well as very positive memory’s not a mass killing. I feel that this reporter’s agenda was to get people to feel the hurt and some of the hard decisions that these people are going to have to make. This is from the new England journal of medicine “the horrific loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 has prompted a national conversation about guns and mental illness in the United States” This reported something very different then the new York times. This was more of a let’s find out why it happened approach. This might not be a bad way to look at it but you are going to see a different agenda then you did with the new York times.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1300512
media and culture text book chapter 7
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/nyregion/newtown-debates-the-fate-of-sandy-hook-elementary-school.html?_r=0
When major events occur, it is the media’s duty as a medium of communication to inform the public. The tragedy of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was an event that required coverage over the situation, and as devastating and heartbreaking as it was, the media’s reaction to the situation needs to be analyzed as much as Adam Lanza’s reasoning for his actions. In an attempt to grab the attention of readers and viewers, news broadcasters and newspapers all take on various methods to evoke more emotion from their audiences and make the story as hard-hitting and memorable as possible. It’s often difficult to find a media outlet that will give an unbiased or impartial view on a situation as similar to the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, but I’ve found that CNN was actually very strict in just relaying the basic information without giving any sort of opinion on the event. CNN gave a very linear and chronological detail of the events, starting with what occurred “before the shooting”, what occurred “inside the school”, and what actions were taken by responding authorities and those directly involved with the situation, like the principal and the teachers. In contrast, news outlets like the New York Daily News and Fox had articles on the situation that gave information about what took place, but also appealed to readers by affecting their emotions with pictures of the victims or just extreme detail that forced the reader to put themselves in the place of the victims. The Daily News headline on the article reads “Grisly Details Emerge in Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting as Newtown, Conn. Mourns 26 Slain by Gunman Adam Lanza”, and then under the headline: “First grade teacher Victoria Soto, 27, died when she threw herself in front of the gunman's bullets to save her students. Another school employee saved 18 kids by hiding them inside a library supply closet. As investigators try to piece together the massacre, Newtown is hailing these women as heroes and mourning the young lives lost.” This is a clear attempt to make the reader feel disgust for the shooter before the contents of the article have even been read. Fox News takes the same position, but adds in the President’s view on the event and testimonies from employees and the authorities who responded.
ReplyDeleteI believe that these outlets took views based on what they expected the public to want. Of course the reader is going to feel contempt towards the shooter, and sympathy for the victims, but I think that while appealing to the reader’s emotions, the story is lost. I think that CNN decided to give a basic delivery of what happened to keep things simple because it’s obvious that the shooter is in the wrong, and there is no argument over if he was justified in doing what he did. It seems as if Fox and the Daily News are pulling at heartstrings for the emotional impact, as if just hearing about what happened wasn’t enough. Both articles give information on some of the funerals being held for the victims and the Daily News even gives testimonials from parents of the victims, and I think this could be to keep the story relevant, but to also make sure that people don’t forget about this event until something bigger comes along, which is a horrible thought. Tom Wicker’s argument over the objectivity in the news, that “The press had so wrapped itself in the paper chains of ‘objective journalism’ that it had little ability to report anything beyond the bare and undeniable facts”(Media and Society, 232) is definitely a relevant point of view in regards to the way information is relayed to the public. I don’t blame the news outlets for not being objective, since it’s the only way to keep their audiences, but it’s clear that sometimes the bare facts only need to be given about certain situations.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/tub16/at-least-26-dead-in-shooting-at-connecticut-school/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hunt-motive-sandy-hook-elementary-shooting-article-1.1220914
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html
When I started the research for this project, I firstly checked 2 conservative news sources, The New York Times and CNN. They both had straightforward reports of the shooting, with enough emotion-filled citations and poetic irony to keep me interested. “Newtown, a postcard-perfect New England town where everyone seems to know everyone else and where there had lately been holiday tree lightings with apple cider and hot chocolate, was plunged into mourning.” (NYtimes) Phrases such as these are a given for most articles. They incite the proper emotions in the reader, and draw attention to the sudden, random nature of tragedy. Both covered the heavy rally for gun control that followed, including the President’s words.
ReplyDeleteA funny thing happened when I typed “Sandy Hook School shooting” into google. Before pressing search, there is a list of suggested search terms that seems to be based on what is most commonly searched. Out of the 4 suggestions that came up, 3 referred to the shooting as a hoax or a conspiracy. This astounded me at first. It’s no surprise that theories such as these would exist for an event as momentous as this. But if the majority of suggested search terms on google refer to conspiracy theories of the event rather than the event itself, something must be up.
All it probably means is that these conspiracy theorists have succeeded in their attention seeking. People have a nasty habit of searching for opinions they know they will hate. Anyone who isn’t buying into the theory is still contributing to its fame simply by taking the time to read it and respond to it. A good half of the results on google were not conspiracy theorists themselves, but anti-conspiracy theorists exposing the flaws in their conspiracy theories. One might even call them conspiracy theorist theorists.
Reading these conspiracy and anti-conspiracy articles brought to light the major differences between professionals and attention seeking theorists. The first obvious difference is that articles like the ones from New York Times generally don’t have an agenda when reporting a story. They’re reporting it as it happened, and they’re making people feel the way the people involved would want them to feel. (This is not always the case, news sources are FAR from perfect ad reporting, but that’s another discussion.)
My main focus was a video “exposing” the hoax used footage from the news to support their points, pointing out contradictions between sources. In the 2 months since it was uploaded, it gained 11 million views, further proving how much attention these kinds of stories get. It was actually FLAGGED on youtube for containing offensive material. The offense is official! The irony of that is that the very first message of the video says, “Video not intended to offend anyone but criminals, our hearts go out to anyone affected by this tragedy. We do NOT claim this shooting did not take place!!!” (video) At least they have a disclaimer right?
The New York Times is most likely on the list of bad guys the conspiracy theorists claim to be in on the hoax, so I guess they can’t. Basically we have 3 groups: Real news reports events. Amateur news reports reports of events and criticizes them. Truth-seekers report reports or reports and criticize them! It’s an endless cycle of who’s right and who’s trustworthy, and in many cases it’s a colossal waste of time.
However, this country was founded on the idea that people should be wary of authority. Fear may be overly prevalent in our society, but in a way, conspiracy theorists are the loud, crazed voices of the common man trying to oppose the big scary government. It is the “well what if I’m right” concept that still draws peoples’ attention to them. Real news doesn’t have to be “right” about anything. You can believe them or not believe them.
Works Cited:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wx9GxXYKx_8&bpctr=1362626395
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all
The two news sources I chose were the NY Times and BBC World News. I chose to use these two because I thought it would be interesting to see how the articles differ from a news source in the country the event happened and a news source from a different country. Both articles were published on the same day, December 14th 2012.
ReplyDeleteThe NY Times article starts off describing the shooter as a, “20 year old gunman wearing combat gear and armed with pistols and semiautomatic weapons,” and gave an overall summary of the incident. It goes on to describe the scene of parents coming to get their sobbing kids from school and explaining how, by then, all of the victims had passed, along with the gunman who committed suicide. The article then compares it to the Virginia Tech shooting, which was the deadliest school shooting in the nation followed by the Sandy Hook massacre. The rest of the article focuses on the question as to why the gunman did what he did. Which at that point, not much was known. The article also quotes President Obama in his speech given shortly after the rampage and explains what some of the teachers and students did while everything was going on. I believe this article reported the incident the way it did because it was so close to New York. It used a lot of sympathetic words like “heartbreaking” and also focused on describing the scene of parents picking up their children from school.
In the BBC article, there was little introduction and was mostly filled with short sentences describing what had happened over seas. It goes right into the fact that the gunman shot his mother before going to the school. I found it interesting that not only did this article relate the shooting to the Virginia Tech shooting as well, but it also mentioned the shootings in Aurora, CO., and mentioned the incidents in Wisconsin and Oregon. This article didn’t go as in depth to the question of why the gunman did what he did, but rather focused on the actions following the shooting. I felt like the way this article reported the event was more informative and kind of just summarized the event rather than focusing on the effects of the community and the nation. Which could have been because the massacre didn’t happen in the paper’s country.
I decided to choose articles that were the first reports of the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School and compare the formats and styles between them. The comparison was definitely interesting and eye-opening. For the first report I chose the article from Al-Jazeera, an Arabic newspaper headquartered in Qatar. The title of the article read, “US School Shooting Leaves 20 Children Dead.” Much like the title the article was very informative and began with distilling facts from the scene. It gives information on the crime scene, where it happened, and known facts about the suspect. It’s then separated by another title, ‘Sheer Terror.’ In this portion of the article it had a photo of two children who looked shocked and hopeless. Followed by various quotes from the parents of the children and others in the neighborhood who came to the crime scene. ‘Heinous Crime’ is what the next sub-section of the article was titled. This area of the article was dedicated to the incident on a national scale. It had quotes from President Obama and described how the nation is handling the shooting. It also includes basic information about the elementary school and the town of Newton (population, square feet, and relational distance to other cities). Finally, the article concludes with a very brief description about recent shootings in the United States.
ReplyDeleteTo combat this rather “to the point” article, I chose to see how it would differ in comparison to the more left-wing writers of NBC. Like Al-Jazeera I chose the first article reported on the incident, “Elementary School Massacre: 20 Children Among 28 killed in Connecticut Slaughter.” The article starts by describing the gunman, not only by name, but by what he was wearing and the specifics of the weapons he was carrying. The description is followed by the shooter’s struggle with a mental disorder as well as the information on the guns he used. This is then transitioned into a series of quotes taken from parents, children, and the President. Quotations taken from the Newtown police were used next to describe the scene and status of their investigations. After more comments from the parents describing the “horror” and “horrendous” scene it transitions into FBI involvement in the matter, statements from governors, as well as people such as Mayor Bloomberg.
CONT. . .
ReplyDeleteI thought the difference between the two was very interesting. Immediately by reading the titles of the articles you can get an idea of how they will read. Like I stated in the first paragraph the Al-Jazeera article was very informative on the matter and gave you all the information you would need to understand what had happened. In NBC’s article you can notice the use of words such as “tragedy”, “massacre”, “monstrous”, “evil”, “terror.” These type of descriptive words can be noticed throughout the entire article. Almost entirely each quote that was used contained a word similar to these. The next difference that I noticed was structure, Al Jazeera’s article was structured in a way which contained sub-headlines within the article, much like how an article from BBC would read. The first section was information on the crime, the second was quotations from people at the scene, and the last was how the shooting was taken on a national scale. NBC’s article seemed all over the place, as if it was being written as things were coming in. There was the description of the shooter, Adam Lanza, then what guns he had carried with him and specifics of the weapons. Then there was just a flood of quote’s from people around the scene, describing the horror. It seemed that half of the article was quotations from parents and children. Similar to Al Jazeera the end of the article contained how the tragedy was received on a national scale, quoting people in higher positions such as the Mayor of New York and the Governor of Connecticut.
I believe that Al Jazeera reported it the way they did because their audience is not primarily Americans. Their report was much more brief than NBC, without leaving any information out. When I read NBC’s reporting of Sandy Hook it made me feel like this was not real life and it was a movie scene. It was extremely detailed and did not stray from using an arsenal of descriptive words. The textbook defines “conflict oriented journalism” as , “font-page news is often defined primarily as events, issues, or experiences that deviate from social norms.” It also suggests that these journalists “…often turn such topics into two-dimensional stories, pitting one idea or person against another.” (Campbell 234). I believe that all the recent shootings in this country has put gun rights on the hot seat for debate, whose existing rights are usually defended by Republicans. This is why I believe NBC’s article is written the way it is, when it is read by democrats they will realize that this kind of “horrendously tragic massacre” could have been prevented with tighter gun restrictions. It’s the journalists way of subtly describing what terrors are possible in this country as long as the gun laws remain unchanged.
WORKS CITED:
ReplyDeletehttp://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/15/15907407-elementary-school-massacre-20-children-among-28-killed-in-connecticut-slaughter?lite
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/12/20121214155320598733.html
The first report I picked was Sandy Hook Shooting: What Happened? From CNN. This article is very by the facts and describes what happened throughout the course of the tragedy from the morning, when the shooter killed his mother, to nightfall, when parents gathered around the firehouse to look for their children. The language used is neutral, not intentionally trying to spark emotion from the reader. There is no opinion from the journalist included, just descriptions of the events that transpired. In some cases the writer mentions that some witnesses claim something happened one way while other witnesses claim that it happened another; for example, when the announcement was made that there was a shooter the building. Some said that it was made known during morning announcements and some said it was later. This story was reported in this way not to push an opinion but to educate the reader on the incident. The reporter is aiming to give the basic facts if what happened, not to make anyone feel angry or remorseful. This article is a great example of objective journalism, in which the reporter strives to “maintain a neutral attitude toward the issue or event they cover; they also search out competing points of view among the sources for a story” (Media & Culture 229).
ReplyDeleteThe Second report I picked was Nation Reels After Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut from The New York Times. Like the first article this one describes what happened during the shooting, however it goes into greater depth and is much more descriptive. Instead of simply saying that the gunman shot 20 students within two classrooms as the CNN article did, this report states that “Witnesses and officials described a horrific scene as the gunman, with brutal efficiency, chose his victims in two classrooms while other students dove under desks and hid in closets.” By using words such as “horrific” and “brutal” the reporter of this article aims to spark emotion in the reader and make them imagine the awful scene. This article goes past the school shooting to report on the reaction of the Nation and Newton community. A large part of this focuses on President Obama’s speech where he tears up and speaks about the loss the country has faced. The article then mentions how Obama calls for “’meaningful action’” to stop these shootings but that “In his nearly four years in office, he has not pressed for expanded gun control.” This part of the report means to relate the Sandy Hook tragedy to bigger societal issues. While they do so subtly, the reporter is expressing their opinion that gun control is a way in which these shootings can be stopped. This article is a good example of interpretive journalism which “aims to explain key issues or events and place them in broader historical or social context” (Media & Society 230). While the writer is reporting facts, he is manipulating them to make the reader feel a certain way and develop a certain opinion.
Barron, James. "Gunman Massacres 20 Children at School in Connecticut; 28 Dead, Including Killer." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
CNN. "Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting: What Happened?" CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.
When you type “Sandy Hook Shooting” into the search bar atop the FOX news website, there are 11096 results. The webpage assures you that the articles are sorted by “relevance,” and so the first few results you see are unsurprising:
ReplyDelete“NRA to be title sponsor for NASCAR Cup race in Texas”
“South Dakota governor signs bill allowing armed teachers in the classroom”
“Fans take sides over Kim Kardashian’s Twitpic of a designer handgun”
These all seemed fascinating: but how to choose? Wanting to get the hard-hitting facts and to steer clear of any media-frenzied riffraff, I decided on the article that featured twitter and a curvaceous pseudo-celebrity.
I quickly found out I had been poorly misguided in this decision, so I searched through a few more pages of Fox News results to find a more informative article, one that would tell me exactly the who, what, where, why, and how of the Sandy Hook tragedy. On page 4 of search results, I found out that “Bryant help[ed] Lakers best Bulls” and how “Nigerian extremists claim they killed 7 hostages,” but still couldn’t find an account of the school shooting I typed into the search bar. On page 9, the NRA NASCAR article was listed twice.
Finally, on page 11, I prevailed:
“As nation mourns, investigators try to figure out what led to tragedy in Netown, Conn.”
Why was this so difficult to find? By the time I could locate it, my eyes were already weary, and I could barely find the motivation to read the article in front of me. Frighteningly, I realized, this may be the answer. More important than the article itself, I think, or at least I was forced to think as I went through my harrowing journey through pages and pages of mush articles, is how hard it was to find the article on FOX’s website. Maybe FOX didn’t want me to find it. I don’t want to sound like I’m calling conspiracy, but it seems like FOX, a conservative news corporation with a taste for bias, would have motive. Nearly all of the articles that were listed before the article I was looking for were concerned with gun control, articles meant to arise an All-American, freedom seeking, gun control opposing anger out of their readers. The sheer amount of gun control articles makes it seem like the ‘danger’ is all the more imminent; with crazed commie liberals everywhere you look, trying to pry your freedoms straight from your holsters. Perhaps FOX doesn’t want you to read about Sandy Hook, because you may begin to see a smidgeon of reason for gun control.
I’m not asserting that gun control is right, neither is it wrong; FOX news burying any dissenting opinion in their search results is, however, quite wrong.
Hoping for a better search experience, I went to the New York Times website, where, thankfully, I had a much easier time of finding articles about the Sandy Hook shootings. The very first result was written on the morning of the attack, and details the specifics of the day’s events.
The article itself, however, was just as unsettling an experience as the one I’d had at FOX news, albeit for a different reason. Many times during the article, there are mentions of media misreporting the event: the error in thinking that the shooter’s mother worked as a teacher in the elementary school, or misreports of the principal “recognizing” the shooter and thus letting him into the school, for examples.
continued.....
ReplyDelete“The gunman was chillingly accurate,” states James Barron’s New York Times article, but it is readily apparently that the media, in this case, was not.
Further, as FOX news desperately tries to separate sentimental feelings for the victim children and the issue of gun control, the more liberal New York Times’ article exacerbates the connection between the two, describing Barak Obama’s tearful eulogy for the 20 elementary school children’s deaths, and using this as a transition into the topic of gun control, a truly shameless pull at your pathos.
And this made me think: was the reason I was so apt to find an informative article on the shootings on the more liberal New York Times website a hope-inspiring sign of neutral reporting, or simply an opposite but equal strategy to elicit a desired belief in readership like FOX?
“I don’t think anyone knows the answers. . .at this point, we don’t know much for sure,” stated a law enforcement official present at the investigation of the tragic elementary school massacre, and it echoes on: we can never be sure of the media’s motives, whether admirable or despicable, no matter what the source.
Articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.foxnews.com/?q=sandy%20hook%20shootings#refresh
The New York Times article says that the principal let the shooter in because she recognized him. They also mention how the shooters mother supposedly worked in the school where he shot the children and the adults and took his own life. They talk about president Obama’s reaction while he was addressing the nation. They speak about what officer did during and after the shooting. However, in this article they were not specific with the victim’s name they only said the 20 children killed and 6 Adults in the CNN article they mention the victim’s name and the age. There is an interview with one of the father’s victim who was talking about his daughter laugh and how she use to make everyone around her laugh with her laugh. They were more specific with the type of caliber of gun that it was. Also included in this online article was and online video of someone explaining what had occurred what they did to identify the bodies. Putting videos up with articles is one of the advantages that make the audience want to read the new paper online because they get more out of it and space is not an issue online. (Campbell245). I believe that CNN reported it the way they did because they were targeting different audiences. To me the CNN article was more anti guns because they actually did there research and found out what type of guns and caliber the gun man used. To me they are informing the audience in the type of guns that we do not need on the streets or to be purchased legally. This had created a large uproar with our current gun laws and restrictions. New York Times was reporting it on a more neutral point of view because they just reported the event and what happened they did not have interviews from the parents.
ReplyDeleteWork Cited
Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos. Media and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/15/us/connecticut-school-shooting
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html?pagewanted=1