Networks give less coverage to Sikh shooting

[Enrique]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/08/tv-nets-give-less-coverage-to-sikh-shooting-131346.html

Two days after six people were killed at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, the story has become just one item among many in the national news cycle — a stark contrast to the flood of media coverage in the days following the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., that killed 12.

With the exception of CNN, which continues to broadcast much of its prime-time programming live from Wisconsin, the major networks have not sent their anchors to Wisconsin and have given significantly less coverage to the shooting. Moreover, the Sikh temple shooting has not launched the national mourning that followed the shooting in Aurora.

To be sure, there are significant differences between the two events, beyond the number of victims. In Colorado, the suspect was still alive (adding the promise of a dramatic court appearance). In Wisconsin, the suspect was killed on the scene. The Colorado suspect had also rigged his apartment with explosives, shot up a place of public recreation, and provided the added flair of claiming to be "The Joker."

But the relative dearth of coverage has not gone unnoticed. Riddi Shah, an editor at The Huffington Post, writes that "if we don't ask why a small religious community in the Midwest was targeted by a 40-year-old white man, if we don't make this discussion as loud and robust as the one that followed the attack on Gabby Giffords or on those young people in Aurora, we're in danger of undermining what America stands for."

(...)

The one exception to the rule has been CNN, which has sent anchors Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper to Wisconsin and put half-a-dozen correspondents on the story nationally, as well as a correspondent in Mumbai, India.

[JI7]

1. i think part of it is they also don't want to talk about the Shooter too much

and what his motives were.

imagine if the shooter was a Muslim and shot up some white christians in a church .

[physioex]

4. That....

And the fact the victims were brown and had beards.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. Exactly!

[RZM]

5. So the media is protecting the shooter because he's a white supremacist?

That's a truly bizarre argument, IMO.

[Scootaloo]

13. No it's not

It's the same reason we call the DC shooter a "terrorist," but we are told, endlessly, that Loughner and Holmes are "deranged individuals." It's why Tim McVeigh was assumed to have extensive "Iraqi connections," and why Kaczynski was assumed to be some variety of Middle eastern.

The media operates on the assumption that white people are intrinsically good. That white people who do bad things are bizarre anomalies of the universe who clearly have no control over themselves. "White people don't do this" is the message sent after these attacks. When the reality is inescapable - as it is in the case of the shooting of the Sikh temple, that the person was a white person driven by lucid motives, then the media is going to give it lower consideration.

This is of course on top of the usual media disregard for nonwhites and nonchristians. if it weren't for CNN keeping this alive, it would have been a fucking one-day story.

[truebrit71]

23. If that were the case it would be 24/7 wall-to-wall coverage...

...

[malaise]

24. Ding ding we have a winner

[physioex]

2. Pretty fair assessment....

Faux News barely covered this and Hannity was interviewing Dick Cheney.

[JI7]

7. no surprise with Fox as according to them Browns are the enemy

and white people are victims. it would confuse their viewers.

[DDO16kadams]

3. So...?

So?

I have seen it on the news, I learned it was a gun free zone and likely a hate crime.

That's all the information I need.

[spanone]

6. so? you missed the point. it wasn't about you

[physioex]

10. The question becomes...

By what process does the corporate media go about in deciding the amount of airtime and manpower allotted to an atrocity?

[dballance]

11. You are absolutely Right

Keeping things in perspective then, I saw that the shooter in Colorado was white, in a gun free zone. That's all the information I need so move on.

But the networks decided, for some reason, to angst and analyze the crime and the shooter for days and weeks.

Apparently white people getting shot at a block-buster film is more interesting than brown people getting shot in their house of worship.

Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps a person, any person walking into a place with a concentration of people and shooting them is just no longer a news-worthy story because it happens now as often as a car accident.

[cthulu2016]

8. Number of people going to movies vs. number attending Sikh temples

[Skittles]

9. just curious but......

do you know what those numbers are?

[rad51]

16. About 500,000 Sikhs in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19143281
No clue on movie goers.

[cthulu2016]

19. Over time, the difference is vast

After all, Sikhs can go to movies too, but few non-Sikhs go to Sikh temples. (Not none. Just not many.)

The number of Americans who have gone or may go to a movie theater is at least 100-200 million. People who can picture themselves in a movie theater.

There are only about a half million American Sikhs total.

So the news audience's perceived involvement in the theater story is vastly higher.

If, on the other hand, if the Sikh temple shooting were perceived as symbolizing a threat to all places of worship then it would be a huge story.

But I don't think most Americans identify with a Sikh temple. They probably should, but they don't.

[JI7]

12. just like how decide on which missing children to report on

[physioex]

14. We had a discussion on this long time ago here in DU...

I forgot the details now but they were going on and on about Terry Schiavo, while a black baby died without insurance. WTF??

[JI7]

15. i don't think they would report on anyone dying because of lack of insurance

the terry shiavo thing was just a fucking joke. and fucking dumbshits in congress wanted to pass legislation on it. stupid fucks.

[limpyhobbler]

17. If a middle eastern man with a turban stormed into a baptist church and shot 10 people...

the media would probably cover it more. The media is racist.

[longship]

18. Same reason we are not hearing about the Joplin Moslim Center being torched.

This is a Christian country, damnit!

Just listen to the people who know. Michelle Bachmann, Alan West, Gohmert, Pat Fucking Robertson, Billy Fucking Graham (and his orchestra), etc. Blah, blah, blah!

Why isn't everybody ridiculing these ignorant fucking know nothings?

I am sad about this.

[JI7]

20. yup, according to them the enemy is an Aide to Hillary Clinton

[frogmarch]

21. Yes, CNN has been all over it, reporting live from Wisconsin.

I think some of the reasons the Wisconsin shootings have received less news coverage than the Colorado shootings might be because...

The Wisconsin shooter is dead - and didn't have freaky red clown hair and spit at people in jail, etc. - and as far as I’ve heard, his dwelling wasn’t rigged with explosives. Much of the Colorado shooting coverage was about Holmes's red hair, bizarre behavior, and the explosives in his apartment.

The Wisconsin shooter’s motive is known: he was a white supremacist. No one knows what the Colorado shooter’s motive was. There's been lots of speculation about it.

There were fewer victims in the Wisconsin shootings.

After the Wisconsin shootings, most people weren’t thinking, It could’ve been ME, as many were after the Colorado shootings.