Media Gives Mass Murderer His Dying Wish

[Borodog]

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thanks for the thread link - obv I don't have the time to go back and reread a year's worth of threads so any references to discussions that have already taken place are welcome

sorry I read "exploding" as "exploiting". I wasn't being snarky for no reason, I was simply saying that in so many other posts you are so vehement about the fact that if a business is providing something and is profitable in a market it is proof that it is "good" - not in the sense of "good" as in "I like it" but "good" as in allowing people to freely choose what they want

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sure you are welcome to say hey that artist sucks, I think people that buy her albums have no taste, but in this case you are coming much closer to saying hey this news coverage sucks, I think society would be better off if they stopped showing this psychopath's face and playing his words 24/7

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(start brief thread hijack)
I think this is a perfect example of the mystification/alienation of a capitalist system in that it obscurs the true social costs of production and consumption decisions so that people "rationally" choose something they wouldn't have rationally chosen in a much different socioeconomic system

eg; if an alien race came down to the US 100 years ago and said hey, we'll give you this fantastic technology that allows you to move places at 10 times the speed of your horse and buggies, but you have to hold a lottery every year and randomly select 100,000 people that we can kill, people would be like get the [censored] out of town

capitalists often refer to this cost obscuring as externalities and believe that the freer a market is, the more these externalities will be able to be internalized

i refer to them as the natural outgrowth of a socioeconomic system that incentivizes individual profit over social wellbeing

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Please take your anti-capitalist crankwork to another thread.

[goodsamaritan]

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"Do you honestly think there is some guy out there who would be the type to go on a murderous rampage, but would refrain from doing so if NBC had not aired this guys' video?"

Not sure. But there may be someone out there who would if NBC does air the video. TV news is still a bigger deal than internet websites.

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And maybe there is some guy out there who is motivated enough by the other coverage of the story, even without the videos being shown. So maybe the media should not cover the story at all, for fear of producing copycats?

Seriously, how much coverage is enough, and how much is too much because it leads to an unacceptable likelihood of producing copycats?

[latefordinner]

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How does anyone figure they're not supposed to be frantically covering the biggest, craziest, scariest news story in the last few years?

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Please I could think of about 700 stories that I think are bigger, crazier, and scarier than a very rare example of a wingnut going on a shooting rampage and killing 30 people. Both in terms of "more tragic" (though tragedy is always so personal - for the person who's child died in a car wreck on 9/11 it was more tragic than a thousand world trade centers falling) and in terms of "more relevant to something that has a likelihood of affecting me personally in a negative way."

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I mean, at least this is a real news story.

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Sure it's a news story, along with the 100+ people killed in Iraq yesterday and the 15-20,000 children who died of easily treatable diseases and starvation yesterday. Doesn't mean we need to spend 2 weeks endlessly replaying the same footage and having interviews with the sister of the boyfriend of some girl who was driving to school but stopped to get a donut and lost her keys and never made it to class and thanks god for stealing her keys.

[samsonite2100]

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Please I could think of about 700 stories that I think are bigger, crazier, and scarier than a very rare example of a wingnut going on a shooting rampage and killing 30 people.

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Forgive me if I don't find your personal disinterest in the biggest mass murder in American history a very compelling reason for the media not to be fiercely covering it.

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Sure it's a news story, along with the 100+ people killed in Iraq yesterday and the 15-20,000 children who died of easily treatable diseases and starvation yesterday.

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Iraq has been relentlessly covered for four years now. The latest suicide bombing is front page on MSNBC and CNN almost every day of the week. Your point is?

[samsonite2100]

Also, this whole "airing the tapes will cause copycats" thing doesn't wash with me. For one thing, most people who do stuff like this aren't doing it to get famous. For another thing, it would take a whole lot more than NBC not airing tapes of this nutball to undo the harm done to our collective psyche by modern mass media. I mean, Christ, Hinckley shot Reagan a quarter century ago to get Jody Foster's attention. Living in the age of internet beheadings and 24 hour multimedia debasement that we do, it seems almost quaint to think that any further damage could be avoided.

[Tablerat]

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Seriously, how much coverage is enough, and how much is too much because it leads to an unacceptable likelihood of producing copycats?

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This is a great question, and I don't think there is a right answer to this. My opinion is that, after browsing local newspapers, national news websites, and on TV, I am bombarded by the most menacing images of the killer that the media can portray. Of course, it is my choice to view these news websites and flip the channels. But I believe that this saturation is likely exacerbating the expected copycat effect.

I know that a small law school in S.F. was shut down today because of a threat; SDSU students received an email to be "aware of their surroundings" tomorrow; and a North Carolina high school student threatened several students with a gun, and later shot and killed himself. These are the only ones I am aware of, but I am sure there have been more today and this week. And they're buried in the local news.

I'm certainly not blaming the media for causing these copycat-like threats or incidents, but I wonder what is the value of sensationalizing an already sensational story? Some people in a similar frame of mind might feel more empowered or emboldened to threaten or commit acts of violence.

[latefordinner]

Univ of MN shut down today for a bomb threat as well

Anyway, here's the link to that subscription based news service I mentioned before:

http://www.therealnews.com/

[SNOWBALL]

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(start brief thread hijack)
I think this is a perfect example of the mystification/alienation of a capitalist system in that it obscurs the true social costs of production and consumption decisions so that people "rationally" choose something they wouldn't have rationally chosen in a much different socioeconomic system

eg; if an alien race came down to the US 100 years ago and said hey, we'll give you this fantastic technology that allows you to move places at 10 times the speed of your horse and buggies, but you have to hold a lottery every year and randomly select 100,000 people that we can kill, people would be like get the [censored] out of town

capitalists often refer to this cost obscuring as externalities and believe that the freer a market is, the more these externalities will be able to be internalized

i refer to them as the natural outgrowth of a socioeconomic system that incentivizes individual profit over social wellbeing

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I'm gonna borrow this from you kthxbai

[AlexM]

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What about the next nutcase who sees this guy getting exactly what he wanted?

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What about him?

He is irrational and will likely do whatever he wants regardless of whether NBC had aired this guy's video or not. Do you honestly think there is some guy out there who would be the type to go on a murderous rampage, but would refrain from doing so if NBC had not aired this guys' video?

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Yes, there are definitely people who would go on a murderous rampage if they knew it would make them famous that wouldn't otherwise. The guy who killed John Lennon specifically said that he did it to become famous.

[AlexM]

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How can the media be exploiting anything - aren't they simply providing their consumers what they want in the market? I thought there was no such thing as an "incorrect outcome" in the market?

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Nice anti-AC hijack btw... This thread isn't at all about capitalism, but you just had to go and turn it into that, didn't you?