Monday, December 17, 2012

Shameful Media Coverage of the Newtown Massacre

A Matt Lewis commentary, at The Week, "The media should be ashamed of its Connecticut coverage":
...transparent society demands reporting newsworthy incidents — and this definitely qualifies. But it should be done responsibly. And that is not what we have witnessed. We have instead a feeding frenzy that is all about beating the competition — not disseminating information.

It's about being first, beating other media outlets, and making a name for themselves. It's a ghoulish mentality that stokes controversy and violence — for business purposes. It's a sort of "if it bleeds it leads" mentality that causes cable networks to create logos and theme music for such tragic events (all the while, they feign maudlin concern and outrage.)

Come to think of it, the media is guilty of doing what they criticize big business for — putting money (in this case, ratings, newsstand sales, and web traffic) ahead of humanity and decency. Just as greedy businessmen put profit and personal gain ahead of ethics, so too do our media outlets.
More at that top link.

Also see Hugh Hewitt, at The Washington Examiner, "The Media Vultures Gather."

It's a big story, no doubt, marred by lots of erroneous reporting and more of the same ghoulish Democrat politicization that we've seen after all of the last mass shootings, from Tucson to Aurora. And of course President Never-Let-a-Crisis-Go-to-Waste will be up with some gun control legislation faster than you can say political exploitation.

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