Extended Essay 2

Keegan McGee

Eric Leake

English 105-01

11/18/09

The Life of a Tragic News Story

News stories are everywhere. We hear them on the news, in class, from our friends, and from a number of other areas of our life. They affect us, directly or indirectly. Often times they are stories from overseas, seemingly irrelevant to us personally, but if you consider us to be the entire human race these stories do impact us. They morph our thoughts about the world. They inherently affect our emotions. They force us to contemplate, to reconsider, the world in which we exist. And by doing so they change whom we are. Therefore news stories are a vital part of our lives. Although there are many stories from which I could choose, I chose the story of the Fort Hood shooting. The Fort Hood story has many facets. There are stories on the shooter, his family, the deceased, the families of the deceased, the investigation, and so on and so forth. The point being that this has affected a large group of people, some more so than others. This aspect of the story is enticing to me because of how one man can change the lives of such a large number of people with the simple pulling of a trigger. This news story has had large amounts of media attention so in order to organize these stories, I will first tell the story from the mass media side, the television, newspapers, etcetera, and then move on to the blogs that had posts concerning this story. To begin our journey through the life of this news story we must trace back to the birth of it, the breaking news.

The news broke on November 5, 2009. All across the nation news channels broadcasted, “Fort hood suspect alive; 12 dead” (CNN.com). This was shocking news. There had been a shooting in Fort Hood, Texas at around 1:30 p.m. (CNN.com) “It was one of the worst mass shootings ever at a military base in the United States.” (New York Times) We were initially told by the military that the suspect had been shot and was dead and now already with the breaking news the story has changed. He has been shot but is still living and breathing. He was identified as Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Now was we can already see the news is never static. It constantly changes. Even with the breaking news we can see the shifts in the story. According to CNN he was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in the near future and was very upset about that. Other than that no one seemed to know what his motives could be, not even his family. His family gave a statement expressing their sorrow for the families of the victims. There was also thought that one of the victims was the shooter at one point, which made it more difficult to identify Hasan as the shooter. (Associated Press) There was also a speculation that there may have been a second shooter. Even soon after all of this another change is made. Thirteen were killed and thirty were injured. (BBC NEWS) It’s enthralling how in less than a span of twenty-four hours there have been this many changes to the breaking news. The fact that these changes have been made brings forth the idea that our media may be a bit over zealous on “getting the story first”. Rather than waiting for solid facts, our media has a tendency to go ahead with whatever information can be found in order to keep the audience intrigued. President Obama said it best “We don't know all of the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all of the facts.” (Washington Post)

To continue with the story we must move forward in time to the next day, November 7, 2009. Now that the initial shock has sunk in more facts continue to emerge about the shooting. Now we begin to have power figures give their condolences to all involved. President Obama gave a speech from the rose garden to discuss the events that had passed and to give his personally condolences. (Washington Post) There was also news concerning the firearms used. “A 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting was purchased legally by suspect Nidal Hasan at a Texas gun shop, law enforcement officials said Friday. Army Col. John Rossi, deputy commander at Fort Hood, confirmed at a news conference late Friday in Texas that the two weapons carried by Hasan were not military arms, but "privately owned weapons ... purchased locally." He said more than 100 rounds were fired during the attack.” (MSNBC.com) There was also new discussion on his motive. This led to discussion of his mental health. Hasan was a military psychiatrist who counseled many soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. This brought up an interesting discussion on They New York Times. In an opinion section article Chris Figley discussion the possible involvement of secondary stress disorder. He sates “Exposure to case after case of combat-related stress injuries often has negative effects for the caregivers who handle these cases. Yet in many instances, those professionals (not to mention family members) do not get proper attention and care for their emotional needs.” (NY Times.com) This information gives the shooter more human characteristics. It allows us to see how this could have come about and why in his mind this was the only was out of his situation. There were also discussions on the religious issue. Hasan is Muslim and had become a part of the vibrant community at Fort Hood. Many of the leaders of the Mosque were outraged at the accusation of one of their own. ““When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.” (NY Times.com)

As time progressed so did the story of the shooting. Obviously there had to be an investigation. The investigation ruled that there was no strong link to a terror plot. There was more of a confirmation that he had serious psychological problems that were exacerbated by his pending deployment to Iraq. (NY times.com) There were new accounts from heroes at Fort Hood. A particular couple of young soldiers, Smith and Pearsall, saved the lives of five or six other people with their heroic actions. (USAToday.com) Now that the general overview of the story has been covered over the days right after the shooting we can move to the blogosphere’s take on the story. Without the mass medias facts about the story many bloggers would never obtain the opportunity to discuss these ideas in such detail because they simply lack the resources required for research into a story such as this one.

As all of these stories broke bloggers around the United States, and even the world, began to talk about what was happening. They put their own personal spin on the story and their own personal grievances. The blog called “the Lede” written by Robert Mackey covered the story in great detail. His initial post read as so

“Original Post | 4:07 p.m. Seven people have been killed and twelve wounded in a mass shooting at the Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, according to Lt. Col. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman. Lt. Col. Nathan Banks told my colleague David Stout that the shootings started at about 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time and that the base has been locked down. He added that one person is in custody but there is believed to be at least one more gunman still at large.

The Associated Press reports that the Web site of the base in central Texas has posted an alert that says, “Effective immediately Fort Hood is closed.” The Web site, which became unavailable soon after the shootings were reported, said that units at the base have been ordered to account for all personnel.

The site says: “This is not a Drill. It is an Emergency Situation.”

The A.P. adds that several television stations in Texas have been reporting on the incident at the base, which is located halfway between Austin and Waco.

Patrick Tolbert of the local ABC affiliate KXXV reports:

Fort Hood officials say one person is in custody but are asking people to stay away from windows. We’ve learned an incident has taken place at the sports dome, now known as the soldier readiness area.

We will bring you more information on this incident as soon as it is available.” (NY Times.com)

As the night progressed he continued to update the blog as information was released. There was no time for him to think about the events or to put any kind of personal spin on it so this is a very factual account of the events that occurred at Fort Hood that day. Other blogs have different discussions of the events as well as discussions on the coverage of the shooting. On David Graham’s blog “The Gaggle”, he discusses how the conservative media has tended to jump right in and blame it on Islamic extremism, although they have been a bit more withholding that usually. In the blog Graham quotes Frum Forum’s writer Sean Linnane with an interesting point of view. “Terrorists all the same, regardless of ideological or political stance–that is all posturing. Example: in the 1980s the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya mounted a bombing campaign against U.S. and British targets in Europe. Several of the bombings were carried out on their behalf by the Baader-Meinhof gang, a secular group of Communists...It doesn’t matter whether it’s Islamic-themed, or Neo-Nazi, or Communist-inspired, terrorism is always the same: it is sheer lunacy, plain and simple.” (The Gaggle Blog) This quote is all too true and just goes to show how the life of a news story can be morphed by personal views.

From this journey through the story of the Fort Hood shootings I have gathered many views on the media and the blogosphere. I have also come to have my own view of the story itself. First of all I will discuss the media. I have come to believe that the media is very antsy to have viewers. The best way to gain viewers and keep them watching is to have a sensational story and to continuously update that story. This often leads them to jump to conclusions about ideas that are not necessarily established as facts. So in that aspect the news media would benefit from a focus on the infallibility of their facts rather than how fast they can gather ideas.

Now on to blogs. Blogs have an interesting role in the presentation of news. Not only are they able to report the facts as they gather them from other news sources but they are also able to have discussions on topics that are closely related to the story at hand, such as in Graham’s blog when he discusses the conservative media’s mode of presenting information. This ability of the blogs to stimulate a conversation while still presenting the facts is ever fascinating to me.

Through my development of these beliefs about the news media and the blogosphere I have also developed my own view of this story. Major Hasan was a troubled man. He counseled numerous troubled soldiers. He listened to the horrific war stories they surely had to tell and helped them through their troubles. Along with this erosion of his psyche, he was a Muslim on an army base. Regardless of what we may like to believe he was ostracized for this beliefs. This would wear on anyone. And when he was informed that he would have to deploy in the upcoming must his mind couldn’t handle the stress. He saw his only way out and that was his shooting spree. He killed innocent people and injured many others because his mind could not handle the stress that had been placed upon him. And as we mourn the families the people who were killed we must wonder, could it have been prevented if the right measures had been taken. We will never know.

Taking an Approach on Taking an Approach

In Harris' chapter "Taking an Approach" he describes two kinds of it. He leads with the type of "taking an approach" that is used in art. He describes it as "weak". This type of taking an approach is often used to contradict the original idea. The other type of taking an approach was the intellectual one. The main difference was that rather than taking a contradictory view, the intellectual one focuses on using the idea to question the idea, not necessarily contradict, simply question. Using the idea to further the thoughts on that idea. This is a very interesting concept, which can end up very confusing, but also very enlightening. By using a text to justify itself I feel like we begin to validate it. And through this validation we allow ourselves to use this idea to further our own thinking. Taking an approach focuses on the how rather than the what.

Taking an approach seems to me to be most useful in intellectual papers. In papers that discuss ideas, where they came from, how they came about, and even more importantly why they came about. So in searching for examples of this in news articles and my blogs I found it rather hard to apply these ideas. I don't know if this is due to some blindness on my part or if it is because these particular sources are more based upon facts of the day than ideas that people are discussing. But anywho I made an attempt to procure some examples. Because I found it so hard to make this connection I decided to search in the Opinion section. I did this because I felt that although most articles are factual, opinion articles may have some ideas that are that of the author. I found my example here. This is a discussion on the reasoning behind why Hobbes' "Leviathan" was not published in Hebrew until recently. Rebecca Goldstein uses Hobbes' idea that religion was ""man's terror at his own mortality" to further her idea that religious leaders use their religious texts to stir up our "inner demons".

Some Slam Poetry

This is one of my favorite poets.

Sparring With Myself

There should not be this many illiterate people, period. Especially not people who have graduated high school. Clearly our school systems are failing at their most basic duty. Yes, in fact out school systems should being doing a better job of educating our society, but we as the students are also responsible. From experience I know that a majority of students are lazy, especially in high school. And who can blame them. They are forced to take classes that they, to be frank, couldn’t give a shit about. They go to school early in the morning; eyes still half closed from sleep and are subjected to the drones of teachers in high school. (I know that is a sweeping generalization, but bear with me for this point.) All these factors cause these students to be lazy but in the end it is still their job to obtain the education required to thrive in our society. If students were more alert, attentive, and overall driven (as they should be) to learn the material presented. If students were to take this initiative then the literacy rates among our population would soar. After all the most powerful motivation is intrinsic.

I chose a rather short passage from one of my blogs to counter for the sake of simplicity. If I were to counter an entire post I may as well write my second essay. I chose this section of my blog to revise and counter because it boldly states a point a view. This point of view has an opposition that I would imagine is strongly backed by frustrated parents, teachers, and administrators. By offering an acceptance that the schools could probably do better I strengthen my opposing view because through acceptance we can affirm our views while still being respectful of the other side of the debate.

Countering

Countering according to Harris "is not to nullify but to suggest a different way of thinking." This is very different from an argument such as was demonstrated in the italics that began the chapter. To me a counter may stem from an argument. But unlike an argument, a counter has a purpose. A counter is almost more parallel to a debate than it would to an argument. Because in a debate your points must be raised in a respectable way that does not infringe upon your opponents rights as a debater. This is very much like the countering approach Harris discusses. In a counter you are expected to recognize the value of the oppositions point of view. You are forced to respect it, if you are to make a valid point yourself. So by recognizing the validity of the opposition in a respectful way you pave a path that allows you as the "counterer" to propose your idea in a way that may "argue the other side", "uncover values", or "dissent". By conveying your opposition to the previous idea in these ways you provide yourself with a means to provide a respectable counter without seeming argumentative.

To be honest I had trouble finding a good example of countering in my blogs but this is the best one I could come up with. On 538 by Nate Silver he discusses the "establishment survey". He states that the "market tends to trust [the establishment survey]" over the "household survey". He recognizes that although this survey did end up in the Dow going up for the time being, he still believes that it is overvalued.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.... Ideas

Harris' "forwarding" is used everyday by nearly everyone, in nearly every mode of discourse. We use it in our conversations, our emails, our essays, and even in our own thoughts. We are constantly taking new ideas that we read or watch and using them to our own benefit. This benefit in terms of "forwarding" takes the ideas and uses the positive sides of them. Rather than bashing an idea for its downfalls, "forwarding" takes the positives and utilizes them. We, through "forwarding", further our understandings of ideas. Not only are using it to help ourselves to understand new ideas, but we also use "forwarding" to help people understand our ideas. So I guess my definition of "forwarding" would be the use of an ideas positive aspects to further either our understanding of the outside worlds ideas, or to encourage the understanding of our ideas by the outside world.

The blog that I read which contains the most "forwarding" from what I can tell is fivethirtyeight. One very strong example of this is Nate Silver's 15 questions to help predict the outcome of a close election. This idea was borrowed by Silver from Bill James' "Keltner list". Although the "Keltner list" was a list of question designed to decide whether or not a baseball player who was on the line for the the hall of fame would get in or not, the idea is the same. By taking James' idea and applying it to another aspect of the world he was "forwarding" the idea or more specifically "borrowing" the idea.

In this particular case of "forwarding" Silver altered more than he lost or gained. The realm of sports and the realm of politics are so very different that it would be difficult for Silver to directly use the questions posed by James. But by altering the questions to fit his needs, while still keeping the same format, Silver "forwards" the idea of the 15 questions to help decide borderline predictions. Obviously since this questions are for predictions and not facts they cannot be held to a factual standard. They can only be regarded as a tool for political analysts to help discuss the close political races. In this case Silver "borrowed" the idea that James' created to help further his ability to predict political races.