Journalism Fail as Sandy Hook Murders Blamed on Video Games
Frontline and a newspaper team up to get it horribly wrong
Media outlets are stumbling over themselves to try and connect video games to the tragic Sandy Hook massacre shooting. The latest attempt comes from an Australian website which has assumed that a destroyed PC hard drive would have "kept records of the games [gunman Adam Lanza] played."
"SANDY Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have been emulating a video game when he carried out his deadly assault last December," reads the sensationalist opening paragraph on Rupert Murdoch's Australian "news" outlet, failing to note that Lanza just as easily 'may not' have been emulating a video game. News was, however, merely commenting on what passes for investigative journalism among the mainstream media now that actual investigative journalism is too expensive actually to do. The "real story" was from a US source...
The news.com.au report states that detectives "are exploring the theory that his video games are a vital clue to his actions." The actual fact is that a news reporter or two hope that police are using video games as a useful publicity tool.
In a feature by the Hartford Courant, it seems that Lanza's close affiliation with firearms could be a much greater link.
"Adam was exposed to guns at an early age and he continued to shoot at target ranges with his mother through his late teens, friends and other sources said. Shooting weapons was something Peter and Nancy Lanza did with their children dating to the early days in Kingston," reads the Courant's piece.
"But after the killings, investigators would focus on Adam Lanza's involvement with firearms and his immersion in the video-game culture as they tried to unravel the riddle of Lanza's last two years," the piece adds.
It appears that tragedies such as the James Bulger murder (a senseless act by two children, initially blamed on movies such as Child's Play 3) have been quickly forgotten in this world of knee-jerk media scapegoating. For every Adam Lanza that "may" have been 'brainwashed into killing machines' by video games, there are countless others that can simply enjoy the medium for what it is - entertainment.
"SANDY Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza may have been emulating a video game when he carried out his deadly assault last December," reads the sensationalist opening paragraph on Rupert Murdoch's Australian "news" outlet, failing to note that Lanza just as easily 'may not' have been emulating a video game. News was, however, merely commenting on what passes for investigative journalism among the mainstream media now that actual investigative journalism is too expensive actually to do. The "real story" was from a US source...
The news.com.au report states that detectives "are exploring the theory that his video games are a vital clue to his actions." The actual fact is that a news reporter or two hope that police are using video games as a useful publicity tool.
In a feature by the Hartford Courant, it seems that Lanza's close affiliation with firearms could be a much greater link.
"Adam was exposed to guns at an early age and he continued to shoot at target ranges with his mother through his late teens, friends and other sources said. Shooting weapons was something Peter and Nancy Lanza did with their children dating to the early days in Kingston," reads the Courant's piece.
"But after the killings, investigators would focus on Adam Lanza's involvement with firearms and his immersion in the video-game culture as they tried to unravel the riddle of Lanza's last two years," the piece adds.
It appears that tragedies such as the James Bulger murder (a senseless act by two children, initially blamed on movies such as Child's Play 3) have been quickly forgotten in this world of knee-jerk media scapegoating. For every Adam Lanza that "may" have been 'brainwashed into killing machines' by video games, there are countless others that can simply enjoy the medium for what it is - entertainment.
Comments
MRXBOX n VAN BC 20 Feb 2013 08:03
1/1
As a world class gamer i would liken it to Porn . Most Use Porn for there own personal use and some still go out and RAPE . It would be like saying the movie MARY POPPINS CAUSES KIDS TO JUMP OFF ROOFTOPS WITH UMBRELLAS . To bad we have so many small mined people trying to MAKE NEWS out of piles of S**T . Then again look at the NEWS CORPS RECORD . SORRY THEY SHOULD BE FORCED BY LAW TO REMOVE THE WORD NEWS FROM THERE TITLE !!!!