Jennifer Dandron
School Violence And 'People Like Us': A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of The Columbine and Red Lake School Shootings,� published in the Critical Sociology academic journal, written by Patricia Leavy and Kathryn Maloney, the two sociologists performed content analysis of three newspapers and discovered that the media did not cover the Red Lake incident nearly as much because it happened on an Indian Reservation rather than at an American public school.17 The target audiences of the media outlets do not include the same demographics that live on reservations. Therefore, the target audiences were less likely to care about the incident at Red Lake. If the media would have covered Red Lake as extensively as they had covered Columbine, then a call to action to end gun violence or to examine the mental health system would have been a likely response from the public. Media outlets did not necessarily find the material from Red Lake to be as controversial a subject as the other shootings because it did not resonate as deeply with the audiences. Moreover, each media outlet took a varying approach when reporting each incident. Some people believed that the journalists breached ethical norms in their coverage.The need to expose these stories and the details leading up to the tragedies was so yearned for by the audiences that journalists did what some people consider ethically wrong. However, these journalists did not breach the code of ethics. Another source of controversy is whether or not journalists handled the shootings with objectivity. The code of ethics that journalists follow requires journalists to maintain objectivity in every circumstance.18 Journalists are humans. Humans will make mistakes and be subjective at times. Journalists should not always be expected to preserve their objectivity, especially in such emotional situations. Complete objectivity is just an idealistic goal, but 17. Leavy, Patricia, and Kathryn P. Maloney. "American Reporting Of School Violence And 'People Like Us': A Comparison Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Columbine And Red Lake School Shootings." Critical Sociology (Sage Publications, Ltd.) 35.2 (2009): 273. P u b l i s h e r Provided Full Text Searching File. (accessed Jan. 12 2013). 18. "Society of Professional Journalists" Society of Professional Journalists: Page Not Found. Society of Professional Journalists, n.d. (accessed January 10, 2013).
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