A weekly look at
a topic important to us
Columbine myth an example
of lazy news reading
i he heavily armed gunman stalks the hall
ways in his black trench coat. He reaches the
library and nudges open the door.
Out of the comer of his eye he glimpses a
young girl trying desperately to hide under a
table. He snarls and raises his gun.
“Do you believe in God?” he asks.
“Yes!” says the girl.
The man in the black trench coat pulls the
trigger.
You’ve all heard this inspiring story of faith
and courage in the face of death. Young Cassie
Bemall, recently converted to Christianity
after a rebellious youth, proclaims her faith in
God to the man about to kill her.
It never happened.
That’s rieht. the Cassie Bemall
Newspapers are increasingly being pur
chased by multinational, multimedia corpora
tions that view newspapers as just another tool
in the money-making kit.
When reporters work for huge conglomer
ates (such as Rupert Murdoch’s company,
which owns TV Guide, the Fox Broadcasting
network, and several newspapers), they, can
become frightened of covering stories or writ
ing columns that might offend affiliated com
panies, major advertisers or their corporate
owners.
In-depth investigation and double- or
triple-checking facts is expensive. It takes
resources and rarely yields big profits.
Newspapers have to compete for a smaller
share of the news pie with television, maga
zines and the emerging Internet.
Even independently owned newspapers
have to think of the bottom line.
There’s a reason why
the Cassie Bernall story
made the front paee around
the country, wh
story, onc«
revealed, was
story is a myth. Further inve:
tion revealed in
October that Cassie -
Bemall was never asked
about her belief in God
before being killed.
“We strongly doubt |
that conversation ever I
occurred,” said Steve |
Davis, spokesman for the
sheriff’s office that
investigated the
Columbine shootings
(Newark Star Ledger,
October 31,1999).
The Cassie Bernall
myth actually stems from
an encounter between her ^
classmate Valeen Schnurr
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and one of the gunmen. The
gunman shot Valeen and then
asked her, “Do you believe in God?”
She said “yes,” and then the gunman asked
why.
“Because I believe and because my par
ents brought me up that way,” she responded.
The gunman then reloaded and walked
away to find more prey. Valeen was hospital
ized but lived.
In effect, the exact opposite of the Cassie
Bemall myth is what actually took place. Some
of the people who had faith lived. Some who
had faith died. God, if he exists; wasn’t being
picky on April 20,1999.
The truth hasn’t slowed the fervent effort to
make Cassie a modern-day Joan of Arc, how
ever. “She Said Yes,” a book about Cassie by
her mother, made No. 8 on the New York Times
Bestseller List as a “nonfiction” book.
Thousands of churches and youth groups
around the country invoke Cassie as an exam
ple of someone with true faith.
Arid it never even happened.
But this is about more than the exploitation
of a dead girl by desperate Christians to bolster
their faith. It’is about how the media work.
Far too often we’re treated to articles
premised on “Sources say...,” “According to
police...” and “Witnesses report....” What
sources? Which witnesses?
But it’s not really the journalists’ fault. The
focus today is shifting to entertainment.
Gene Roberts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, told a
meeting of journalists that “the news industry
is shirking its duty and committing industrial
suicide by providing less news coverage and
more ‘infotainment’ in its papers.”
some
where *
around
page 14,
of *11
Simply put, m
“She said‘yes!’” '
sells a lot more
papers than,
“Actually, she didn’t
‘yes.’”
ineomyming we can v r
do is be skeptical of what we read. *
Look for evidence, not assertions. Follow
up on stories. Get your information from a
variety of sources. -
Simply reading two different newspapers
each day will quickly demonstrate how a
paper's political leanings affect more than the
editorial page.
And just because she never said “yes”
doesn’t mean we should forget about Cassie
Bernall. She was one of the thousands of
Americans victimized by violent crime last
year.
But if we truly want to solve the problem of
violent crime, we have to stop praying and start
acting.
Jeremy Patrick is a first-year law student
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
Ignorance of masses leads to
incorrectly laid blame
In the past five years, the public has hung a
new “Wanted: Dead Or Alive” poster up in
mailrooms across America. The reward? It’s
incredibly high - the adoration of people across
the nation. Sounds pretty good, huh? Who do
you have to bring in to become the nation’s
greatest hero?
“Wanted: Public Enemy #1 - The Media.
Dead or alive, same reward for either. Wanted
for: Crimes against humanity and civi
lization.”
latce a gooa iook at your
self, people, because this is
what you wanted.
For the past half
, decade, I can’t men
!tion I’m working in
the media without
people staring at me
in that same way they
once did if I told
them I was a lawyer.
What was once a
noble profession has
been sullied and tar
nished, and you
attempt to shame the
media right Out of
existence.
And it’s your own
1UUU.
We tell you what hap
pened and, as it has been
for millennia, you
have turned on the
k messenger for
tri the contents of
w the message.
Iff You can’t put
■ your finger on
what’s wrong
with society, so
you blame us, your
favorite little scape
goat.
Part of this prob
lem resides in the con
cept that being in the
media is an easy job.
Anyone can do it, right'
Wrong.
I Millions of people
across the world think
they can understand exact
ly how the media works
because they’ve seen movies
like “All the President’s
y | men aiiu diuouoom news.
If | Should I be able to go in and
' \ / operate on people because I’ve
watched “ER” and “Chicago
Hope?” Are you modi
Another common myth is that newspapers
are controlled by their owners. This is, general
ly, an asinine assertion.
Picture this, will you?
Somewhere in New York, in a penthouse
office, some 85 floors above street level...
“OK boys, what’s going to be the frontpage
for the Washington Pbst today? ’’
“I don’t know, sir What s happening
there? ’’
' “Ah, who cares? Whatever s the most scan
dalous, put that at the top.’’
“Yes sir.’’
Not to burst your bubble, but I somehow
don’t think so. Just because a newspaper has a
big corporate owner doesn’t mean the Owner
affects the daily running of the paper.
Sure, there are occasions where the bigwigs
try to come down and assert their power. Then
the bigwigs usually get themselves into some
fight over news integrity and, more often than
not, realize they don’t know a damn thing about
how to run a newspaper. That’s why the news
papers have editors.
Not every newspaper is a sterling example
of virtue. Everyone’s allowed to make a few
mistakes here and there, but when a columnist
; writes something against the grain of the cor
porate owners, there isn’t usually a memo sent
down from up on high firing the columnist for
it.
It’s that damned freedom of speech thing at
work again.
All of this isn’t to say the media isn’t chang
ing, and this is another big complaint of people:
There’s too much “entertainment news,” too
much is focused on celebrities and too little is
focused on real-world events.
But that’s what you want That’s what you
read. And aren’t we here to give you what you
want?
We still try to force-feed the populace as
much news as possible, but to do that, we have
to find out what you actually want to read and
see.
America’s turned into a voyeuristic society. _
We want to know every inch of our stars’ lives,
every meaningless detail of every tragedy.
But you can’t know every inch of every
story. Until there’s a camera in every comer of
the world, we in the media have to base what
we relay to you on what people tell us.
If a shooting goes on in a McDonald’s and
the witness tells us an account, we relay it to
you as he or she told us and give you what other
facts we have. If that witness lies, how are we
supposed to know? Were we in there? Were
you?
The reason the Cassie Bemall myth was
trumpeted across America was that it was fresh
and inspirational to some people. By the time
the truth came out, many people were tired of
hearing of Columbine, so most newspapers still
printed the story, but did not give it high priori
ty.
A few days after the tragedy, anything
Columbine-related was page one. But more
than six months later, there is bigger and more
important news.
It’s a matter of timeliness.
Something six months old just isn’t that
important any more. The reason it made front
pages the fust time was because die tragedy
’ was fresh in people’s minds, and they were still
interested.
as ume passes, people warn to distance
themselves from the tragedy as much as possi
ble. They want to try to forget
No matter what the religious right hears in
the way of facts, it has already made a martyr
out of Cassie Bemall. You could yell the truth
at members of the religious right until you were
blue in the face - they believe the story, and for
them, that overwhelms the truth.
The religious right has its own truth it
clings to, as false as it may be.
And when it boils down to it, anyone with a
rational mind should be getting his or her news
from more than one source. No news source
can be entirely objective - everyone in the
media tries to be objective, but total objectivity
is fictitious.
No matter how die media handle any
tragedy, someone is going to be upset, but that’s
our job. We’re destined to be hated, die messen
gers killed for their role in enlightening
America.
You’re welcome, folks.
Now keep hating us for it
Cliff Hicks is a senior news-editorial and English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
