Are immediate updates really important?
With the recent shootings at Dawson college on the 13th, I was forced to ask myself how important it actually is to have up to date information as soon as possible on certain situations. Several reporters and newscrew assessed that they sprinted to be as close to the action as possible, as soon as possible. This, according to them, backfired when they found themselves apperently caught up in the action and almost "turned into victims" themselves. Given the information at the time that more then one shooter were present on the scene.
It was later revealed that only one man was responsible for the actions undertaken and that only one shooter was ever present. It has been documented (see wikipedia) that the time between the first shots fired and the death of the shooter was 7-8 minutes. One has to wonder how it is possible to have reporters get to the scene and almost "get caught in the middle" in that span of time. Not only that, but for several hours, rumors of multiple shooters were being passed around, from 2 shooters to 5 shooters. Witnesses placed shooters in the school, outside the school, inside the metro and inside nearby underground shopping malls. The only people direcly responsible for this spread of panic are the reporters who decided to publicize false information.
What's more stunning is how fast CBC got newsachors from Alberta to host the newscoverage while reporters were on scene in Montreal. While some may say this is testement to how great technology has become, I find it quite hilarious that they decided to broadcast from Alberta over Montreal. Within hours, they also got a few of those wonderful musical and graphic montage of several of the filmed scenes in slow motion over useful and basic text: "Dawson under fire!". "Hurry up Billy, we gotta get that musical montage on the air as soon as possible!"
Reporters were also hasty about finding eye witnesses. The first testimonies heard were obviously the more histerical cases to make the news look more interesting and turn the story into a story of shock and horror. Of course, I had to sit watch as I heard the testimony of some blond girl crying who could barely speak, yet could still manage to comment on the shooter's attire. Describing him as "the typical type with a retarted haircut". Great news, maybe next we can have some gay stylist explain in detail how to proceed to get your hair a few points lower in IQ. What little information I got out of her wonderful display of intellect was the information I could've gotten off those wonderful little pieces of writting on the musical montages.
Nevertheless, I think CBC should be ashamed at how they delivered the story. Rare is it that I see such a lack of professionalism in news coverage. The number of the victims kept varying, the amount of shooters as well, the locations of dangerous individuals and what's more is that a reporter for CBC who was finally given the story later on that night described the actions of certain students 'cowardly'. Groups of students thought "Hey, no one in here's a shooter. How about we barricade the door?", and so they executed their ideas. Not a terrible idea considering it would make the killer's retreat and hostage possibility a lot lower. If they were unlucky and happen to be able to catch the news and hear the wonderfully inacurate information given, it would make barricading oneself seem rather intelligent. Dawson college, in my opinion, has a very unstructured architecture with semi-floors and several confusing basements. If one was to run out of the classroom into the open, he would risk exposing himself. Although, given the timeline above, no danger would have truely been present, it is important to note that if danger was present then having classes evacuated would only give a shooter more targets to shoot at.
Such events rarely happen, and seem to happen less in Canada. I'm glad that we at least have incopetent newsreporters to keep us posted on the latest events. Thank Zombie Jesus for that.
2 Comments:
The funniest comment was regarding the girl who said: "the typical type with a retarded haircut". No doubt the girl was herself a very stereotypical person in many ways. This reminds me of last night, as I was at a university football game. One freshman was smoking like an ashtray, screaming "I love you 88!", starting into spontaneous rap songs, and wearing the typical oversized Paris Hilton sunglasses. There was nothing more stereotypical than this, yet I'm sure if you were to ask her, she would deny it.
The coverage of the Dawson shooting shocked me as well. I can't vouch for CBC's coverage, but I wouldn't put the blame on them any more than the other networks. I caught a bit of CTV's coverage, as well as some of the other networks. The main problem is that they feel required to cover the story for 24 hours straight, and yet for the first 8 hours they have no information whatsoever. Therefore, they try and give the illusion that there's a wealth of information about the case, and that it's all stuff which you must absolutely know!
There was a ton of misinformation spread, as you say, in regards to multiple gunmen, the testimony of hysterical students taken for absolute truth, and speculation based on primitive findings and lack of communication. Instead of letting the police do their job (they are to be commended, by the way), the media degraded the situation into award-winning fiction.
We should not put the blame only on the media, though. This only exists because viewers want to see exactly this sort of coverage. It has to be able to keep their attention for 5 hours on end, when the true information available can be condensed into about 30 seconds. Instead, it's important to watch the same few video clips of people running repeated over and over again. This is pure, disgusting sensationalism.
When I say we are to blame, it is our reactions and our desire for instant information/gratification that drives this type of sensationalism. My mom, for example, asked me when she got home what the killer's motive was, how many people died and were injured, and who the killer was (where did he live? was he a student? how old was he?). Being only 3 hours after the shootings had occurred, and the police not having released much information up to that point, these were all ridiculous questions to be asking, but they were precisely the same questions that the media was trying to answer (if only because this is what people want to know). Let the police do their fucking investigation and take a chill pill.
Dawson = A bit of real for the hyperreal ;) As Baudrillard would say!
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