1. Outbreak of what is being called the swine flu.
2. GM is eliminating the Pontiac line, laying off 21,000 employees by 2010.
3. The NFL draft - like it or not, it's everywhere.
Those dominated the news, with other things like the economy, Obama's first 100 days, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the Yankees-Red Sox series, etc,... also drawing attention.
It was interesting to note one story that drew far less attention than I expected: A 57-year-old professor at University of Georgia in Athens shot and killed three people on Saturday afternoon. As of right now, there is an ongoing manhunt for him. My students had not even heard about this story. Here is the current story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, two days after the shootings:
Why was it overshadowed?
If it involved students, would it have drawn more attention?
If it was involving a minority would it have been a bigger headline?
Decision-makers in the news had plenty to deal with this weekend, to be sure. I'm not sure if they missed this one or not. But it is interesting how a seemingly big news story can be shuffled aside simply due to timing of other big stories.
20 comments:
I guess what I read of this story, it is ok to be a crazed killer with a gun if you are a liberal college professor. If this man was a auto worker it would have made world wide headlines.
I agree those are most of the main headlines (though I didn't really all of the draft stuff going on went pretty much over my head). Well anyway though, I think you did miss one main headline which is the story of torture that the Republican band wagon jumped onto for a while claiming that it it was necessary for keeping our country safe. Sean Hannidy* mentioned last week on his fear-mongering radio program that he didn't think water-boarding Talek Shek Mohamed 183 times "was that bad." Citizens of any nation who have not been tried for any specific crime are still human beings and thus should have the rights provided to them under the geneva convention.
By the way I think it is inexcusable to be commit an act of homicide for a person of any profession. I don't know what being an auto worker has to do with anything. It's completely beside the point and I don't know what sort of way out faar reaching connection you're attempting to make.
First, I do think considering the social role - or class - of the person who committed the crime does matter. It doesn't matter in a moral sense, but in a newsworthiness sense it does.
Consider this: Is it news if a random factory worker kills a couple people in a random act? Is it news if an executive with a major bank kills a couple people while at work? Which gets bigger headlines?
As a former newspaper editor, it's obvious to me. The banker is far more out of the norm - and out of the norm makes bigger news. That's a fact.
Second, you're absolutely right about missing the torture story. It's a big one. It just wasn't new that day. It certainly is ongoing. I think this should be an outrage that our country condoned horrible acts of torture to ANYONE. I don't care how bad. President Obama had an interesting scenario during his 100-day speech about Churchill not allowing torture on over 200 enemy captives while London was being mercilessly bombed during World War II. That's called long-term, thoughtful thinking.
Do me a favor go to this website and read a few short stories. If you voted for Obama you are just as guilty as Bush of condoning torture. If you are really open to debate you will go there and read. Then consider who is the criminal, the doctor, the parent, the voters who knew they voted for this.
http://joseromia.tripod.com/survivors.html
Again, this is not about me and my political beliefs. What do you think about today's newspaper headlines?
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