That Fox News piece is harmless, actually. I live in Germany, and German mass media news coverage of the school shooting is worse by several magnitudes. Let me give you a round up:
1. Some stations were really, really quick to discuss the influence video games might have had on the shooter. ARD (German's largest public service TV station, comparable to NBC, BBC and CBC) aired a special issue of a popular politics talk show on the same evening that the shooting took place. Video games took a large proportion of the discussion, even though at that time, there was no evidence that the shooter had even played video games.
Given the fact that shows like that take some time to prepare, you might argue that the producers started inviting guests and preparing footage the minute they heard of the shooting. Taking into account that one of the participants was video game journalists and at least one other guest was a researcher with a focus on the effect of video games on young people, you could argue that the producers prepared a show with an emphasis on video games without even knowing the first thing about the shooting and its circumstances. Pretty solid journalism here.
2. On top of that, a portion of German media, including the above-mentioned ARD, keeps insisting that "THE INTERNET" played a major role in the shooting. They fail to mention the exact way that could have happened however. I'm really puzzled what that could be, but it doesn't seem to matter anyway. There's also wild assertions of people "creating their very own virtual reality of the events", suggesting that "THE INTERNET" is a place where all kinds of crazies idealise and romanticise the shooter. I don't know how they come up with such crap, and somehow I don't even want to.
3. While the above mentioned points might be only borderline crazy, an article found on most-popular German news website Spiegel Online is just outright insane. For some undiscernible reason, the article's author manages to link the school shooting, video games and current government plans to block access to.. CHILD PORNOGRAPHY?
1. Some stations were really, really quick to discuss the influence video games might have had on the shooter. ARD (German's largest public service TV station, comparable to NBC, BBC and CBC) aired a special issue of a popular politics talk show on the same evening that the shooting took place. Video games took a large proportion of the discussion, even though at that time, there was no evidence that the shooter had even played video games.
Given the fact that shows like that take some time to prepare, you might argue that the producers started inviting guests and preparing footage the minute they heard of the shooting. Taking into account that one of the participants was video game journalists and at least one other guest was a researcher with a focus on the effect of video games on young people, you could argue that the producers prepared a show with an emphasis on video games without even knowing the first thing about the shooting and its circumstances. Pretty solid journalism here.
2. On top of that, a portion of German media, including the above-mentioned ARD, keeps insisting that "THE INTERNET" played a major role in the shooting. They fail to mention the exact way that could have happened however. I'm really puzzled what that could be, but it doesn't seem to matter anyway. There's also wild assertions of people "creating their very own virtual reality of the events", suggesting that "THE INTERNET" is a place where all kinds of crazies idealise and romanticise the shooter. I don't know how they come up with such crap, and somehow I don't even want to.
3. While the above mentioned points might be only borderline crazy, an article found on most-popular German news website Spiegel Online is just outright insane. For some undiscernible reason, the article's author manages to link the school shooting, video games and current government plans to block access to.. CHILD PORNOGRAPHY?
