Consider Your Source

After reading the Matthew Shepherd story and learning about framing and how specific words can shape public opinion in the media aftermath of tragic events such as these, it reminded me of another tragic event in American media history – Columbine. 

I was twenty-three when this happened and I can still remember the media headlines that dominated the news and the nightly pundits that debated who was really to blame for this tragedy – guns or Marilyn Manson.  In some ways, this debate over who was to blame seemed even more important than the facts that surrounded the event. 

It took ten years and the publishing of Dave Cullen’s book Columbine to change the framing and rhetoric surrounding one of the worst school shootings in American history at the time.    With a release date timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, Cullen’s book dispelled many of the myths that surrounded the original media reports on the story – reports that some people even still believe, despite concrete evidence that disputes these initial rumors put forth by the media.

It seemed easy for everyone to push the blame onto goth culture, homosexuality, bullying, gun control, or basically anything that didn’t fit the traditional high school mode of popularity.  These were easy assumptions to make, and even easier assumptions to continue to believe when the media were only talking about it in this way.  And once the nation accepted this media fed version of why this tragedy happened, the facts weren’t important anymore.  People weren’t interested in the truth, they had already accepted this particular version of it and they were content to accept it for simply that and move forward with their lives.  It was no longer important to understand the truth when there was already a sense of resolution, no matter how inaccurate it might be. 

What’s to be learned from this story – consider your source.  If this, or the Matthew Shepherd story, or any other tragic event from pre-twitter and Facebook times were to happen today, I think it would be different.  Multiple immediate perspectives on these kinds of things makes it more difficult for the media to frame it in a singular sensational way.