Opinion// There is No PlayStation or Xbox 'Killer'
So, nothing seems wrong there does it?
It concerns the horror of two 16 year-olds, one of whom murdered the other. It concerns the way the story has been handled.
Here's the headline promulgated by several newspapers and websites due to a press agency report:
The agency is the Press Association.
'Boy gets life for PlayStation death.'
The headline derives from the presiding judge's (Goldstone) summing up:
"In truth you thought no more of having that knife in your pocket than you would a wallet or a house key. If you had been able to give the matter a moment's thought you would have realised that carrying and using that knife was no way to deal with a dispute about a Playstation.”
The story related to it begins:
“A 16-year-old boy who murdered another boy of the same age in a row about a PlayStation has been locked up for life.”
The story refers to the sentencing of Shane Boyd (16) over the knife murder of Conor Black (16) in Moston in the north west of England.
So, nothing seems wrong there does it?
Of course not.
Not until you read what actually happened according to the Greater Manchester Police:
“The 16-year-old boy wanted to confront Conor over the alleged theft of an Xbox games console, and fatally stabbed him in the early hours of Saturday 16 August 2008, on Gill Street in Moston.”
So, now we have an Xbox and not a PlayStation. We also don't have a row “about a PlayStation”, we have a row over the “theft of an Xbox”.
Arguing over someone apparently stealing from you; different to arguing over a games console. Factually different... so much so that you'd figure this would have made the headline something like:
"Youth Murdered Youth Over Alleged Theft"
Not quite as eye-catching that though, is it?
The facts seemed to have changed. Is the judge correct? Are the GMP correct? Either way, did the professional, 'proper' news media check?
It appears not.
The type of console (Xbox? Xbox 360? PlayStation? PlayStation 2? PlayStation 3? PlayStation portable?) being confused by either one or the other should come as no surprise. Unless, that is, you want your mainstream media to fact check.
Or maybe you would like the judge, who heard the entire case, to agree on detail with the police authority that investigated the case? Are they both wrong?
In the case of a murder, the console really should not be relevant to the investigation or sentencing or reporting. No more so, in fact, than if one person had murdered another over the theft of a bike, a fridge, an iPhone, a television or a pair of shoes.
That the mainstream media consider the console relevant is, therefore, concerning. Or it should be.
The fact that the murder is also portrayed as somehow being related to the console rather than to the theft of an item is also relevant. It is relevant because it is both misleading as it casts the pastime of playing games as the reason for the tragic death of a 16 year-old, and the consequent waste of another 16 year-old's life.
The fact that drink had also been involved? Cheap drink? Cheap drink available to 16 year-olds? Not really reasons? Of course they are as much reasons as the type of video games hardware that might or might not have been stolen.
The fact that, at 16, Boyd is considered to be illiterate should also be a concern in a nominally first-world country.
But no... the easier thing to do is to attach video gaming via a mention of a console to teens murdering teens. It makes for neat shorthand.
The kind of shorthand that shifts blame. It certainly will not stop more 16 year-olds from killing others.
I'd recommend that before the mainsteam media decides to use this kind of shorthand again, at least one member takes a while to look at Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole in which Kirk Douglas plays a journalist who uses a man trapped down a mine as what looks like an easy way to break a big story.
I'd also recommend that as gamers, we give the professional, trained hacks no opportunity to attach gaming to the kind of horror that happened in Moston.
Looking for an easy scare, the tabloids and the press agencies will come looking on forums and in live gaming situations for even the slightest hint to lead them to a story of “Foul mouthed, violent youngsters threatening violence over video games!”
The opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and does not reflect those of SPOnG.com except when it does.
Want to vent your gaming spleen? Send 900 words max of well thought-out, deeply analysed opinion and we may even run it. Send in 900 words of incisive but mostly brutally angry invective, and we almost certainly will.
Read More Like This
Comments
JLR 27 Feb 2009 09:38
1/4
I never really paid much attention to bad news stories like this. I understood what they were trying to do with the headlines - and usually the sensationalised story to go with it - but it never really bothered me that much.
Recently though, a few stories have gotten my back up a little bit, not starting, but certainly not ending with this. Maybe I'm growing up. My girlfriend tells me I'm becoming liberal about stuff, for which I was obviously DISGUSTED.
But yeah, it's a crock of s**t and bad journalism is really starting to grind my gears.
Recently though, a few stories have gotten my back up a little bit, not starting, but certainly not ending with this. Maybe I'm growing up. My girlfriend tells me I'm becoming liberal about stuff, for which I was obviously DISGUSTED.
But yeah, it's a crock of s**t and bad journalism is really starting to grind my gears.
Jeff 27 Feb 2009 11:41
2/4
Bad, lazy journalism. Bad, pointless rant.
So what? Isn't the most important thing actually that a 16 year old boys knifed to death another 16 year old boy? And the moment you say 'over theft' people want the details of what was stolen.
I don't actually read into it any of the 'computer game drove youth to kill' type propaganda that often accompanies these stories. At no point is it hinted that the playing of games console contributed to the death, merely that it was the artifact that caused the row.
I think though your anger has spilled over from so much tosh written about computer games and their negative effect on society and now you're seeing it where it none exists.
This is no more sensational than 'teen murdered for mobile phone', 'woman killed over theft of car' or 'pensioner murdered for £20'. They, like this story, do not implicate the phone, car or £20 in the actual murder. They are items of interest to the reader and make better headlines than 'boy murdered for theft of inanimate, innocent bystander of an item''.
So what? Isn't the most important thing actually that a 16 year old boys knifed to death another 16 year old boy? And the moment you say 'over theft' people want the details of what was stolen.
I don't actually read into it any of the 'computer game drove youth to kill' type propaganda that often accompanies these stories. At no point is it hinted that the playing of games console contributed to the death, merely that it was the artifact that caused the row.
I think though your anger has spilled over from so much tosh written about computer games and their negative effect on society and now you're seeing it where it none exists.
This is no more sensational than 'teen murdered for mobile phone', 'woman killed over theft of car' or 'pensioner murdered for £20'. They, like this story, do not implicate the phone, car or £20 in the actual murder. They are items of interest to the reader and make better headlines than 'boy murdered for theft of inanimate, innocent bystander of an item''.
more comments below our sponsor's message
PreciousRoi 27 Feb 2009 12:50
3/4
bah.
The point isn't that the article(s) in question shouldn't have mentioned videogames or a console. The point is that the motive for the murder was, arguably and almost certainly purposefully, obfuscated, distorting the truth of the matter for the sake of either sensationalism, or agenda, likely both. Not only that, but they can't even be arsed to get even the basic facts straight.
You are absolutely right though when you say that there's no difference between this tragedy and any other theft-related murder...but it wasn't reported as a murder resulting from a theft was it? It was reported as a murder over a gaming console (which console is apparently a subject of contention)...seems unlikely to me, a rank outsider from the States, that a journo would leave that bit out (that the console in question was nicked, presumably from the stabber, by the stabbee, though the reverse is certainly possible), if he didn't have some kind of axe to grind. Including the information relating to the alleged theft would have rendered the entire story easy to understand by most readers, but apparently this wasn't the reporter responsible's (or his editor's) goal. Leaving the motive and actual situation leading up to the crime at the rather more nebulous "row over a PlayStation" leaves the reader with rather more uncertainty...you aren't sure what exactly the "row" was about, aside from knowing it was a(nother in a long series of fictionalized, reported as fact) videogame-related murder(s).
Would certainly apply to the original story which prompted the Opinion piece in the first place.
Would apply to your response to said Opinion piece.
The point isn't that the article(s) in question shouldn't have mentioned videogames or a console. The point is that the motive for the murder was, arguably and almost certainly purposefully, obfuscated, distorting the truth of the matter for the sake of either sensationalism, or agenda, likely both. Not only that, but they can't even be arsed to get even the basic facts straight.
You are absolutely right though when you say that there's no difference between this tragedy and any other theft-related murder...but it wasn't reported as a murder resulting from a theft was it? It was reported as a murder over a gaming console (which console is apparently a subject of contention)...seems unlikely to me, a rank outsider from the States, that a journo would leave that bit out (that the console in question was nicked, presumably from the stabber, by the stabbee, though the reverse is certainly possible), if he didn't have some kind of axe to grind. Including the information relating to the alleged theft would have rendered the entire story easy to understand by most readers, but apparently this wasn't the reporter responsible's (or his editor's) goal. Leaving the motive and actual situation leading up to the crime at the rather more nebulous "row over a PlayStation" leaves the reader with rather more uncertainty...you aren't sure what exactly the "row" was about, aside from knowing it was a(nother in a long series of fictionalized, reported as fact) videogame-related murder(s).
Jeff wrote:
Bad, lazy journalism.
Would certainly apply to the original story which prompted the Opinion piece in the first place.
Jeff wrote:
Bad, pointless rant.
Would apply to your response to said Opinion piece.
TigerUppercut 6 Mar 2009 17:37
4/4
I I carry a knife everywhere. One of these, actually:
It's used for doing normal knifey stuff, I take it hunting, collecting mushrooms and it's always in my pocket. I guess it could be used for defense one day, though it's more likely to be used hacking a leg of a fresh road-kill deer.
That being said, I'd feel pretty vulnerable in and around Manchester or central London without it these days. I'm so used to having it, and the perception (as gifted to me by the media) that every hoodied yoot is itching to stab someone just freaks me out.
It's used for doing normal knifey stuff, I take it hunting, collecting mushrooms and it's always in my pocket. I guess it could be used for defense one day, though it's more likely to be used hacking a leg of a fresh road-kill deer.
That being said, I'd feel pretty vulnerable in and around Manchester or central London without it these days. I'm so used to having it, and the perception (as gifted to me by the media) that every hoodied yoot is itching to stab someone just freaks me out.