Hugh has been asking why there hasn't been as much coverage as you might expect of the Minnesota school shooting. I've got a couple of ideas about that:
The Schiavo case has effectively sucked all the oxygen out of the news cycle, and given the literally life-and-death nature of the news from Florida, the media can't find time for anything else. With the seemingly never ending cycle of filings, hearings, decisions, news conferences and appeals, there's always some news breaking that requires immediate coverage.
I think the real reason is a variation on the old "if a tree falls in the forest" question. If a school shooting takes place and there is no video of terrified kids running for their lives, or pictures of bloodied victims falling out of school windows as we saw at Columbine, will the media give it much attention? The news business has become so focused on images that there's little interest in telling a story that's not accompanied by graphic pictures. The lack of action footage from Red Lake has helped drive this story into the background.
Conversely, there was a truck crash in downtown Seattle yesterday that was on every channel. No one was injured and damage was relatively minor, but there was some spectacular video, and therefore it was news.
Maybe some day the media will grow up and start telling stories again instead of just thumbing through picture books.
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