Daily Mirror Takes Yet Another Cheap Shot At Gaming
We may expect more from our media but we're not going to get it.
Every society gets the media it deserves, cousin.
Yet again the mainstream press has jumped on video games as an Officially Bad Thing. Following the imprisonment of Ryan Donovan yesterday for shooting members of the crew aboard a Royal Navy nuclear submarine, the Daily Mirror has gone for the tasteful "I'll do a Grand Theft Auto style massacre" as their front page headline.
Their website (which we're not linking to, they don't deserve the hits) takes it even further by saying that he was "copying his favourite X-rated video game where players rack up points for kills". The Mirror also states that GTA "has been linked to a number of multiple murders, mainly in the US." Spectacularly vague there, folks.
Free paper The Metro went for a similar feel with "Sailor's 'GTA gun spree' on nuke sub" and all around the country gamer's palms went straight to their faces. Now, admittedly the game was mentioned during the court case when Prosecutor Nigel Lickley stated that Donovan started talking about Grand Theft Auto where you start a massacre and rack up points by killing." However, the fact that the papers have again gone for the extreme option and picked GTA as the focus for their headline is – as always – a little disturbing.
Sadly we are well used to media treating video games as a scapegoat for issues. Obese children, the London riots and other violent acts have seen gaming dragged into the spotlight. This is just another example of shoddy reporting that we need to ignore and just disregard.
However, when the Daily Mirror also says that "Cyber Kids dabble with death" and GTA incites "vulnerable youngsters to commit horrific crimes" it can get difficult to do so. The fact that Donovan was troubled? That he had been drinking? Pretty much ignored. It was all down to games.
Daily Mirror? You're on The List. Everyone else, carry on as normal, nothing to see here.
Source: Daily Mirror
Their website (which we're not linking to, they don't deserve the hits) takes it even further by saying that he was "copying his favourite X-rated video game where players rack up points for kills". The Mirror also states that GTA "has been linked to a number of multiple murders, mainly in the US." Spectacularly vague there, folks.
Free paper The Metro went for a similar feel with "Sailor's 'GTA gun spree' on nuke sub" and all around the country gamer's palms went straight to their faces. Now, admittedly the game was mentioned during the court case when Prosecutor Nigel Lickley stated that Donovan started talking about Grand Theft Auto where you start a massacre and rack up points by killing." However, the fact that the papers have again gone for the extreme option and picked GTA as the focus for their headline is – as always – a little disturbing.
Sadly we are well used to media treating video games as a scapegoat for issues. Obese children, the London riots and other violent acts have seen gaming dragged into the spotlight. This is just another example of shoddy reporting that we need to ignore and just disregard.
However, when the Daily Mirror also says that "Cyber Kids dabble with death" and GTA incites "vulnerable youngsters to commit horrific crimes" it can get difficult to do so. The fact that Donovan was troubled? That he had been drinking? Pretty much ignored. It was all down to games.
Daily Mirror? You're on The List. Everyone else, carry on as normal, nothing to see here.
Source: Daily Mirror
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Comments
Blade803 21 Sep 2011 12:01
1/1
That's the newspapers for you, they don't do any research anymore, they just like to take the easy option and aim the blame at games, it's what they did back in the day when they blamed rock music and movies for people killing people.