Well before I went to sleep I was told on the BBC News website of a gunman in New York State killing 13 people and himself. There was even a nice little video for people to watch.
Another BBC News headline caught my eye; ‘Deadly air strike in Pakistan’. Again 13 people killed, but it does seem that numbers are irrelevant in such unstable parts of the world. The amount of fatal news reports we hear every day coming from the Pakistan/Afghanistan region is shocking.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Friday, 3 April 2009
Day 1 – Today’s Total: 6, Overall Total: 6
So this is it. I begin my study into Deaths in the media. (I should mention I shall capitalise all ‘Death’)
Today I was informed of six Deaths. Due to being ‘out and about’ most of the day I was only able to catch glimpses of the media, but this did not stop me immediately being introduced to a story after five minutes of awakening.
Having turned on my laptop I headed for yahoo.com, where I found the headline news bulletin of two people who were shot last night.
And so it began. The next story was told to me as the breaking bulletin on BBC 5-Live, with a man being killed by two youths. The final story was a report on a police inspection over the Deaths of the millionaire who killed him wife and child as well as suicide.
So, no disrespect to the horrible stories that occurred today, but a fairly low total. I must say I did feel aggrieved when I heard about the man and the youths. Maybe my reasoning over being desensitised by Death reports is already faultering?
Let’s see what this month has in store for us…
Today I was informed of six Deaths. Due to being ‘out and about’ most of the day I was only able to catch glimpses of the media, but this did not stop me immediately being introduced to a story after five minutes of awakening.
Having turned on my laptop I headed for yahoo.com, where I found the headline news bulletin of two people who were shot last night.
And so it began. The next story was told to me as the breaking bulletin on BBC 5-Live, with a man being killed by two youths. The final story was a report on a police inspection over the Deaths of the millionaire who killed him wife and child as well as suicide.
So, no disrespect to the horrible stories that occurred today, but a fairly low total. I must say I did feel aggrieved when I heard about the man and the youths. Maybe my reasoning over being desensitised by Death reports is already faultering?
Let’s see what this month has in store for us…
What this blog is about, and my reasoning behind it
Over the last few days, I have heard numerous reports on the radio, television, internet and newspapers of people dying. Recently a helicopter tragically went down over the North Sea, 19 people died in a horrific football supporter stampede in the Ivory Coast, and the killer of a young boy in London has gladly been sent down.
Death, it seems, is filling our senses. As Joe Public, we cannot escape it. Now I appreciate the fact that Death should be reported just like any other news, and that it is a fact of life, but am I the only one who feels it is 'overly reported'?
I must say at this point my reasoning for this blog is NOT to discredit the work the media does in reporting such terrible events, scenes and stories. However, I do feel that we are being somewhat desensitised by an overflow of continuous Death-related reports.
It seems to me like news on someone dying is just another story. We watch films and programs where people run around with guns, committing vast amounts of killing in order to entertain us. We do not quiver a single lash from our unbattered eyelids when we see someone die on screen now. Of course we know it's fictional, but has this secure knowledge of fantastical loss of life slipped into reality?
How many people do you know die a year? I appreciate this is a very sensitive issue but I have to say I know very few. This is not a boast or any sort of piss-take. I am writing this blog to try and prove a point; that the greatly publicised notion of Death has slipped into a common, almost passive significance for those who receive it through the media, and have no connection with the news they are given.
In order to fully appreciate how much Death is reported to us in our lives, I am going to keep a daily tally on Death-related stories I hear, read and watch over the next month (3rd April to 3rd May). I will not go out of my way to find stories, and will only include ones that are told to me, rather than me rooting through the arse-end of the internet, the 'red button' of the TV, and the 3-inch columns of the newspapers.
My issue is that Death, as news, is given to society now in such a passive manner that it barely registers as 'out of the ordinary'.
Death, it seems, is filling our senses. As Joe Public, we cannot escape it. Now I appreciate the fact that Death should be reported just like any other news, and that it is a fact of life, but am I the only one who feels it is 'overly reported'?
I must say at this point my reasoning for this blog is NOT to discredit the work the media does in reporting such terrible events, scenes and stories. However, I do feel that we are being somewhat desensitised by an overflow of continuous Death-related reports.
It seems to me like news on someone dying is just another story. We watch films and programs where people run around with guns, committing vast amounts of killing in order to entertain us. We do not quiver a single lash from our unbattered eyelids when we see someone die on screen now. Of course we know it's fictional, but has this secure knowledge of fantastical loss of life slipped into reality?
How many people do you know die a year? I appreciate this is a very sensitive issue but I have to say I know very few. This is not a boast or any sort of piss-take. I am writing this blog to try and prove a point; that the greatly publicised notion of Death has slipped into a common, almost passive significance for those who receive it through the media, and have no connection with the news they are given.
In order to fully appreciate how much Death is reported to us in our lives, I am going to keep a daily tally on Death-related stories I hear, read and watch over the next month (3rd April to 3rd May). I will not go out of my way to find stories, and will only include ones that are told to me, rather than me rooting through the arse-end of the internet, the 'red button' of the TV, and the 3-inch columns of the newspapers.
My issue is that Death, as news, is given to society now in such a passive manner that it barely registers as 'out of the ordinary'.
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