If it bleeds, it leads.
Any journalist is familiar with the phrase. I can tell you because I am one. The violence is what sells. If you’ve got a story on a good Samaritan who spends his weekends in a soup kitchen and a deadly house fire that killed three, there’s no question what your top story will be tonight.
So the news thrives on bad stuff. But in light of the recent tragedies at Aurora, Sandy Hook and now Lone Star College, I’ve heard this notion several times: “If the media wouldn’t glorify these crazies so much, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Whoa.
I mean, yeah, it’s a natural response. You hear about a wild man with a gun shooting 20 kids in an elementary school, and you want to know: how did this happen? Is a lack of school security to blame? What about gun control? Is the government at fault for not having better help for the mentally unstable? What about the media?
So now the media gets tossed in. Pushing some agenda, no doubt. And here’s the thing. Yes, the news is supposed to be unbiased. No, that’s not always the case.
Any distortion of the news is wrong. As a journalist, I plan to always report the news objectively, no matter the story or platform. But to all those who blame the media for the people who commit terrible crimes, take a step back. It’s our job to keep the public informed. It’s my duty as a journalist. If a man brutally murders 20 children, that’s something the public wants to know. That’s something the public needs to know.
Maybe ignorance is bliss, but in the words of Sir Francis Bacon: “Knowledge is power.” (The guy’s name is Bacon, so you know he’s someone worth listening to.) Through knowledge and circulation, real change happens.
When the media presents the disasters of the world, the distribution of that information paves the way for the humanitarians of the world. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the media showed those images to the world.
And when the world witnessed that devastation, they gave back.
People want to help. Just as when the world saw the tragedy at Sandy Hook, the outpouring of love was unbelievable. Cards. Letters. Money. Prayers. That’s the kind of compassion that warms my heart, but it’s a level of compassion that can’t be achieved without a transmission of knowledge.
The amount of coverage on a story like that on major networks may seem extreme, but it’s there because you watch. America still watches.
Inherently, we want to know more. Because we know through a deeper comprehension of the world around us, we become stronger, more capable beings.
And only then can we make a true impact on this world.