Folks,
This disparate level of coverage over Iraqis who die in the
conflict/police action/insurgent war/civil war in Iraq versus the 32
murdered students at VT is a form of cultural and national dissonant
communication. It part of the debate over the editorializing of all news
coverage, where the editors of news papers and TV news departments must
decide what events to cover and to what extent they should cover them over
time.
The VT murders along with the Columbine murders take precedence on U.S.
new coverage, mostly because it's (1) An event occurring within the U.S.,
(2) it's a bleeding lead, which is just another way of saying that if enough
human death or injury, the more interesting and relevant the story becomes
to the general public and (3) it was performed by a purpetrator, a bad guy,
who could be immediately or quickly identified and vilified.
The past weeks death toll in Baghdad and its outskirts from either
insurgent terrorist/Suni-on-Shia attacks do qualify as lead stories and have
been prevelantly covered in print media and TV news sources. This news item
certainly meets the second and third criteria mentioned above, but not the
first and this is the problem. The approximate 150 deaths in Baghdad this
week were poor, faceless Iraqi citizens who have no real, truly secular
national news media. If an Iraq press or TV network of any journalistic
standing actually put forward all of these deaths in a news story that got
24-hr a day coverage, then the U.S. news agencies could carry those stories
through to the U.S. market more readily and actually put faces to these
faceless Iraqis. However, Iraqi media is controlled by religious sectarian
groups who don't report from a non-biased secular tradition of journalism.
As far as U.S. media keeping these dead Iraqis on TV or in print
constantly for a week or more would also require that people in the U.S.
find these deaths as relevant to them in their daily lives as the kids at
VT. The kids at VT mean something to people here in the U.S., they are us.
The people dying in Iraq simply put aren't us and in a sense their lives
don't count as much to Americans or their media outlets, even though they
are probably losing their lives because of the actions of our government's
invasion and current foreign policy in Iraq and the greater Middle East, and
military presence there.
None of these deaths both at VT or in Baghdad are acceptable. They are
all despicable acts of violence perpetrated by cowardly, morally-misguided
human beings
On 4/20/07, Kyle Cassidy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On my way out the door yesterday I heard that there were 130 dead in
Baghdad an as many again wounded that day. But without the 24/7 CNN
coverage, it all seems so far away.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Vincent/Roger
Thanks for posting this, Ray.
My first thought about the Virginia Tech shootings was that -- said as it
was -- the equivalent loss of life, or often more, happens just about every
day in Iraq.
