-- Peter Hart in the headlines sections of CounterSpin which began airing last Friday.
The broadcast on KPFA resulted in Jim hitting the roof, calling C.I. and saying that a planned feature was now "dead" and wanting to know whether C.I. mentioned it "to any friends at FAIR"? (FAIR produces CounterSpin.) No, no one outside of people working on this edition had any idea except for a brief note that was up at both Kat and Rebecca's sites announcing that C.I. would address the error Wednesday night at The Common Ills and both pulled the mentions from their posts within an hour when they were informed that it would be a feature for Third. (Kat notes that she also pulled a mention of another school incident -- which also involved explosives -- since it wasn't solely a shooting.)
In answer to the second question, C.I. said QUOTE: "I'm finding it really hard to believe the piece is dead because I'm finding it really hard to believe that CounterSpin addressed media big and small. I'm sure they focused on CBS but who else?" Jim couldn't remember but agreed that they hadn't addressed it all. As you've now seen, they took CBS (C.I. was right) and NBC to task -- and they took two women to task. If you heard the item in the headlines of CounterSpin you might assume it was just those two networks, or women, that got it wrong.
Oh, come on. It was a cesspool of ignorance and isn't that usually the case for All Things Media Big and Small?
Repeating a falsehood over and over does not and will not make it true. The KPFA Evening News, three times on Wednesday, called the Virginia Tech shootings on Monday the worst in US history (using various phrases, including the "the biggest mass shooting in US history"). They lied? No, they just didn't know better. A news staffer grabs a claim and runs with it. The claim is false but it pops up everywhere. Why? An advocacy group did put it out. That didn't make it true. And before rushing it on air or in print, Stupid Media -- Big and Small -- should have demonstrated that they know more than how to repeat. All Headline News wasn't too picky to promote a claim as fact:
The incident, the worst shooting massacre in U.S. history, has raised several questions over people's right to bear arms.
At The Progressive, Ruth Conniff wins the dopey prize. Though it's not clear whether she's saying Barack Obama stated it was the biggest or if she's just offering a tidbit as an intro, she writes:
Monday's massacre, the biggest mass shooting in American history, will prompt "all kinds of discussion," Obama said--about crime, violence, gun control, and campus security, among other topics. "But I hope there will be some discussion of violence in all its forms. . . . [In American culture] we glorify it, encourage it, ignore it . . . . It's heartbreaking. And it has to stop."
Conniff, get a bottle of the strong stuff, blast the Replacements like it's still the 1980s and reclaim your soul and voice. You are destroying yourself in the land of mini-vans and it's not pretty. The National Post showed off their lack of fact checker thusly:
With 33 dead, including the gunman, and 15 injured, the massacre at Virginia Tech was the most lethal mass shooting in U.S. history and raised immediate questions over why students were not warned away from campus in the moments following the initial violence.
Early on, Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) quoted the Brady Campaign on "what appears to be one of the worst mass shootings in American history". (The Brady Campaign is not the advocacy group that popularized the false claim, just FYI.) Similarly, John Nichols wrote about it for The Nation without distorting reality:
There will be plenty of "rapid responses" to the gun rampage on the Virginia Tech campus, which has claimed the lives of as many as 31 students -- making it the deadliest school shooting incident in the history of the United States. Now granted, when you run one female byline for every four male, you're a magazine with plenty of troubles but they are supposed to fact check their writers.
"Deadliest school shooting incident in the history of the United States." That is correct as best we can determine. There was a larger school massacre in the last century but it also involved explosives. On Tuesday, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) also noted it as the worst "school" shooting. So three in small media, taking care with their words and writing, don't embarrass themselves. You can also toss in Free Speech Radio News as an outlet that got it right. Let's return to the Hall of Shame. Sue Lindsey is credited as "Associated Press writer" so Professional Idiot must just be something she does as a hobby? Here she writes:
A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.
Whether or not Alessandra Stanley (New York Times) was attempting merely to note what was being said, it needs to be pointed out that observing "Television anchors said over and over that the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech was the deadliest in American history, but that was not the only shocking aspect of yesterday’s continual coverage" without calling out the mistake isn't really addressing reality. Also in the paper of little record, Little Man Marcs demonstrated that he remains as factually challenged as ever when he penned: "Mr. Cho was identified this morning by officials at Virginia Tech as the man who the day before gunned down professors and fellow classmates in what now stands as the worst rampage shooting in American history." [Note: No link to the article -- pure trash.]
No, Little Man Marcs, it doesn't stand as any such thing; however, you continue to stand as one of the worst reporters in American history. Congratulations, how proud your parents must be. Vying for the title of Fool on the Hill, Roxana Tiron and Jackie Kucinich (The Hill) write: "The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history yesterday sent shock waves through Capitol Hill, where the House and Senate observed a moment of silence for the students and faculty killed by a gunman at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va. "
At Slate, William Saletan seemed to be on to something, but hang in for the twist:
"Deadliest Shooting in U.S. History," said the Washington Post. "Deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history," agreed the Chicago Tribune. "Deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history," echoed the Los Angeles Times. What happened at Virginia Tech was indeed our deadliest shooting. But the key word isn't "deadliest." It's "shooting."
The twist? He goes on to write of planes. Trains and automobiles will, no doubt, be next. And for the record, Saletan, the Virginia Tech shooting was not "indeed our deadliest shooting." Hand over another ticket or step aside so the next one in line can play.
That a publicity release from an advocacy group went out last Monday with the falsehood (an advocacy group that got an incredible amount of attention) is no excuse for getting it wrong.
But facts really didn't seem to be the concern in the coverage. We all avoided the TV coverage. So we couldn't have called out, say, Katie Couric, but, note CounterSpin managed to -- while avoiding a plethora of others. (C.I.'s found the above and, had it gone up Wednesday night at The Common Ills, there were 100 outlets listed who got it wrong. Strange that CounterSpin noted no print media considering the scope and reach of AP.) We didn't watch the TV coverage because we didn't need the soap opera. Though Elaine and C.I. always avert their eyes from a roadside accident if they see emergency services have already arrived, the rest of us are far less noble and have the stiff necks to prove it. But we can tell the difference between news and melodrama.
NBC, as Peter Hart noted, aired footage of the killer, footage the killer taped and intended to be aired. They should have. It was news. The wall to wall started long before that was ever aired. And it's strange that CounterSpin didn't call that out. But there is no question that, once this became a news story (and remained billed as such), the videotape was news. Brian Williams isn't much of a news person which is why he made his mealy-mouthed statement. The correct statement was: "We've covered this from various [all and then some] angles all week. Now we had a chance to go inside the mind of the assumed killer. Would an archeologist turn down the opportunity to study something like this? Probably not and a news outlet shouldn't either."
Was NBC's coverage excessive? Compared to what? The entire coverage was excessive. The New York Times created a special headline for their multi-paged, daily coverage of it (including stories that began on the front page). They ran multiple columns about the shooting on the op-ed pages. Mainstream media was nothing but excessive on this topic. As C.I. wrote, they were like vultures picking the bones -- demonstrating the truth in Joni Mitchell's words "Wouldn't they like their peace? Don't we get bored? And we call for the three great stimulants of the exhausted ones/ Artifice, brutality and innocence" ("Dog Eat Dog," off the CD of the same name).
That was big media. What about small media? KPFA listeners got very lucky on Wednesday -- they made it through Democracy Now! without hearing about it. That resulted from technical problems. KPFA listeners were under the impression that Amy Goodman had the good sense to avoid the band wagon. Instead, Democracy Now! (that aired on KPFA Wednesday) offered up an hour long interview with Noam Chomsky. That added something to understanding, that could be considered a public service. Unfortunately, those who listen, watch or read at the website were deprived of that broadcast and got instead an hour devoted to shootings. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang indeed.
What was going on with small media? A lot of them saw the case as a way to make political hay with a pet cause: gun control. It needs to be noted that Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were in the midst of a speaking tour about the dangers of nuclear energy when Three Mile Island happened. The tour was then cancelled. If you thought small media had any of the same taste, you thought wrong.
The Notion (the blog of The Nation -- one of their blogs) was all over the shooting, day after damn day. The website Lotta Links didn't stick a toe in the cesspool, they dove in -- day after day.
The advocacy group that started the lie All Things Media Big and Small couldn't let go -- let alone fact check -- demonstrated what it was really about: not the tragedy of what happened on Monday, it was about advancing the cause of gun control -- and while the corpses were not yet cold, they were all over the tragedy.
The tragedy should have been a one day lead story (on Monday). Instead it (not just the video of the alleged killer) was wall to wall. Why? Who was served by that?
We don't believe you cater news to protect feelings but we are aware that the defense offered was that this was a tragedy and the victims and the survivors needed it? Needed it why? More than likely, what they longed for was for pushy reporters to get the hell away from them while they were grieving. At one point, a friend of C.I.'s called and C.I. was in the car. "You've got to get to a TV! Headline News is having a meltdown!" (The friend worked at CNN.) C.I. went into a restaurant with a TV and got an iced tea to see what was going on. Poor Headline News -- they had the shooting to gas bag over (this was Wednesday) and the trial of a woman charged with killing her husband! It was hard for them to balance both soap operas, so much so that when they had to pull away (for little over one minute) to note the deadliest bombings in Baghdad of the year, they rushed quickly ad libbing that it was time to check in on "the goings on Iraq". The goings on? As C.I. noted, how "newsie" of them.
The wall to wall, the flood the zone, is hardly surprising -- from media, big or small. We expected CounterSpin to note that panic appeared to be the response media wanted. It didn't note that. But isn't that really at the heart of it all? Isn't that why the advocacy group put out the press release proclaiming it the "worst" when it wasn't? Isn't panic the desired response because (and Bully Boy should have taught the nation this), if you can scare everyone, you can pass just about anything -- whether it solves a problem or not.
Isn't that how we ended up with the Patriot Act, to cite just one example?
It was really interesting to see an advocacy group call for a moment of silence when they appeared to spend the entire week attempting to whip up a hysteria. Out of respect for the victims, you understand -- same victims they used the entire week as pawns to advance their own agenda.
Gun control? It's not an issue we work on (or work against). If it's your issue, have at it. But have the decency not to interject yourself into a tragedy in order to advance your cause. And before you suggest a moment of silence, ask yourself if there hasn't already been more than enough silence on the increasing violence in our lives, around the world? A moment of rage, where everyone yelled their heads off for a minute around the nation? We could get behind that. But we don't see silence as an answer. We do see it as a namby-pamby response that's allowed far too many things to occur without being called out.