A picture, a cell phone and a dead body. The recent death at the University of Houston has caused students, faculty and staff to question their safety.
A man lying in the Metro bus stop surrounded by crime scene tape and investigators dominated the front page of the Daily Cougar on Feb. 9.
When something unexpected or violent happens, the media feels compelled to inform citizens of what is going on in their world. But sometimes, people think that newspapers, broadcasts and magazines go too far.
After the attacks on Sept. 11, the news networks showed images of planes crashing into buildings and people dying or dead for two weeks. The world stopped and rightly so, but that much exposure to traumatic images can cause depression, nervous breakdowns or feelings of anxiety.
The issue at hand is what is too far. There were many complaints that a school newspaper shouldn’t have pictures of violence, but the story was news. If the paper was a high school newspaper, then there would be cause for concern. But a college paper that is written by people who plan to become professional journalist need the experience of crime reporting.
Community leaders and the public needs to realize that we need to do more than publish what Student Council did last week. Writers for the Daily Cougar plan to become investigative reporters, crime beat reporters and hard news reporters.
The Virginia Tech massacre in April of 2007 had an impact that the university’s weekly paper ran a whole series of articles for the first anniversary.
We need information, we need to know what is going on, but we don’t need trauma. The American Psychiatric Association says that the viewing of violence or traumatic events will cause anxiety and in some cases disensitizing members of the population.
