Unless you are a hermit who has absolutely no contact with anyone and your TV, Radio, Computer and Phone all broke this week, you will be aware that in Cumbria on Wednesday 2nd June 2010 a man shot many innocent people in Cumbria, killing 12 people, including his twin brother and injuring many more before turning the gun on himself. It is very sad when things like this happen, but unfortunately these are crimes no-one can predict and therefore cannot be stopped.
This event also coincided with ITV's ‘gripping week of television’, in which crazed mad-mad Tony, escapes from prison to seek revenge. By Tuesday he had taken 2 people hostage and shown them a gun, but the episodes on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday all got postponed because the gun gets used. Yes, how unlucky were ITV. This was going to be the week when they unveiled how brilliant their programs are in High Definition with Britain's Got Talent concluding and an exciting week on Corrie, but because the storyline in Corrie very slightly reflected an awful event that happened in real life, got ruined.
Never fear Coronation Street fans though, instead next week is going to be the ‘gripping week of television’ instead, in which they are somehow going to try and show two weeks’ worth of episodes in the one week. I am going to be fed up of Coronation Street by the end of next week I think. Anyway, this blog is not supposed to be me moaning about Coronation Street not being on this week, it is instead supposed to be a giant moan at the media - yet again.
You can ask ANY leading psychologist and they will tell you this kind of coverage on tragic events like this actually fuels many similar attacks. We live in a society where the media love to sensationalise every piece of news they come across, whether it is the BP oil spill and Barrack Obama having a moan at them or if it is Adrian Chiles leaving the BBC for ITV, they have to make it attention grabbing. News like a mass shooting is matched with dramatic music, big swoosh’s as text runs across the screen and journalists looking sternly down the camera while stood in front of the crime scene with same police tape showing behind them. This makes mass murdering appealing to any possible serial killers.
Every news report about the 'rampage', as they like to call it, starts with a dramatic shot of police officers walking around the crime scene. It looks exciting and thrilling. Then they try sequence the events which happened, in this case they separated the attacks into three different phases. I honestly do not see why they need to do this. What good is coming from the news telling us where he was at certain times and how many people he had shot at each scene? This is only because we now have 24 hour news, meaning they have too much time fill up with useless information.
Then they have to talk to eye witnesses to get a perspective from an inbred idiot of what happened. Of course, we learn nothing we did not already know from these eye-witness accounts because the media has gotten to them first. They have watched the news already, so instead just start repeating what the newsreader had previously said, just with a bit more slurring and less coherent. With any eye-witness account of an event like this, there has to be mobile phone footage of the murderer holding a gun, or indeed driving through country roads. These are shaky and of bad quality, and these, along with the idiot talking with fear in his voice, trigger something in a unstable mind who is watching the news as if it were a religion, and beginning to froth at the mouth at the thought of the blood.
Then in an attempt to make everyone become full of empathy and sadness, they name and show pictures of the victims looking happy. This is done with such dignity which should be applauded as they are announced as bland as possible. However, they read the names out slowly, and it makes the name become slightly imprinted on the listener’s memory, and with each name you can hear the beat of gun. However, in the unstable mind of the one or two viewers, this begins to sound like a triumph, and each name being read out slowly sounds like a triumph.
Also, the media are strangely keen to uncover the reasoning for this outburst of bullets in the direction of unsuspecting and innocent people. Rarely have I read or listened to any report on the subject of these killings without the question of 'Why?' being shouted like a vicar giving an emotional sermon in church about the devil and his sins. 'Why did the 52-year-old taxi driver shoot 12 people dead in Cumbria before shooting himself on Wednesday?' 'What were the triggers for Derrick Bird's murderous outburst?' Time after time these questions are being shouted at us, while the media slowly uncover facts like him being probed over tax issues. Continuously, there is this question of 'Why?' and again, in some mind in the country this is all triggering something which could end in more attacks.
I do not want to sound as if I am trying to preach to you blog readers that the media are the cause of these kinds of attacks, because they are not. Certainly, they are not helping the issue, but it is to do with the individual who has some kind of mental problem. I can offer you numerous case studies of this being the case. We all remember the shootings in a German High School, where a teenage shot his own peers and teachers, before turning the gun on himself a few years ago. This was covered in pretty much the same way by our media as these Cumbria shootings are.
The attack at the German High School came soon after all those High School shootings in America, which seemed to happen quite a few times at different school in a small amount of time. Their media, yet again, covered each story in pretty much the same attitude as our media did then and now - in fact, probably worse. We all know how emotional American's can get about this kind of thing and they have a history of sensationalising every negative event in their country and with religion always being the key. These are prime examples of the media trying to cover a big news story for the public, but sensationalising it make it sound like an extraordinary and history making event.
Obviously, the media should cover these stories as the public do have a right to know about these events. Sure, the media should be sure to constantly emphasis how terrible and life changing this event is. I just think they need to cover these kinds of stories with a bit more care, and shouldn't fill an entire half hour news show on this one event. I personally think dramatising and sensationalising everything is just going to make events like this a more common occurrence, and do we want a world with spontaneous killings like in Grand Theft Auto?
These kinds of killings are almost impossible to predict and in reality, are rather uncommon in the UK. The fact that this killing spree was not planned and was purely spontaneous after something triggered in his mind to do such an awful thing. Now the new ConDem Government want to enforce tougher rules against guns. I can't see this helping in the slightest bit. The more you restrict people from having guns; chances are the amount of gun crimes will increase. Restricting what kind of guns everyone is allowed to own just because one man lost the plot and killed a few people, is not necessary. Maybe the police should just be more prepared for attacks of this nature. We've already heard on the news how it took police three hours to find him - and by then he had shot himself. That is what needs changing - not the rules against guns.
I also think that cancelling Coronation Street was a step too far as well. This is a prime example of ITV trying to be as politically correct as possible and trying not to offend anyone, because they know we live in a very PC Country and people are easily offended. Sure, in the episodes which have been moved to next week will include a gun and two people being killed, but this is in a soap where everything that happens is almost completely taken away from the real world. I really do think it is a shame that we live in a PC World (shut up, I do not mean the computer shop, I do mean 'a Politically Correct World) where we must tip toe around every subject in society, just in case we make some person cry. I blame the media and the 27,000 people who phoned up to complain about the Ross/Brand fiasco nearly 2 years ago. I hope they are happy with what they have done to our lives.
Everyone's first reactions to this story are of being distraught and completely upset by it. Mine? It didn't affect me at all; in fact I am not even sure I cared in the slightest bit. You see, I had been drinking; two bottles of Champagne at a friend’s house, and the news was announced to a drunken me by some woman on the CBBC channel reading the news. Whether it didn't affect me because I was drunk or because CBBC carefully white-washed over how awful this event was, I will never know.
Anyway, that brings an end to my rant about the media. Hopefully, I am completely wrong about it all and there will be no repeat killings this time. Also, just because I can and it makes me sound brilliantly kind, my respects go to those families who were affected by the loss of someone special at the hands of Derrick Bird, even though I know none of you will ever read this...
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