Essay two with bibliography

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, Graham) 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.



Bibliography
1. The Editors, “Combat Stress and the Fort Hood Gunman,” November 6, 2009, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/combat-stress-and-the-fort-hood-gunman/?partner=rss&emc=rss.

2. BBC News, “Deadly shootings at US army base,” http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/8345713.stm.

3. CNN, “Officials: Fort Hood shootings suspect alive; 12 dead,” http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/05/texas.fort.hood.shootings/index.html.

4. Barack Obama, “President Obama Delivers remarks from the Rose Garden on the Fort Hood Shotting,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110602590.html?wprss=rss_politics.

5. Dan Reed, “Young soldiers show heroism in Fort Hood tragedy,” http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-11-06-heroes_N.htm?csp=34.
6. David Graham, “Conservative Media on Fort Hood Shooting,” http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/11/06/conservative-media-on-ft-hood-shooting.aspx.

Reminiscing

I have learned many new ideas about the reading and writing habits of the human race through this course. I have been exposed to many popular writers who I honestly had no clue existed. All of the exposure was a bit of a shock to me. I think my favorite writer that we read was Hedges. This is for many reasons.

First of all Hedges is very provocative. He challenges every American's belief in our intellectual superiority to the rest of the world and that, frankly, pisses people off. This aspect of Hedges is really what grabbed my attention but there are other factors that elevated him to my favorite writer of the class. Not only is he provocative but he is factual. He uses statistics about the literacy of our nation that are very in your face. He doesn't pull any punches. He also, through the use of his shocking facts, forces us to question our views of ourselves and the people around us. By doing so we learn new ideas about literacy and ourselves. These new ideas can allow us to think more deeply about topics that we normally wouldn't. And I love that. I love thinking. So really what it boils down to is that I really enjoy thinking and because Hedges made me think deeply he became my favorite.

Through all of this thinking that I do in my everyday life I have come to some new conclusions about literacy, reading, writing, and communicating thanks to this course. I have come to realize that we are not as advanced as we may like to think. But we are progressing. And that gives me hope. A hope that in the future through the use of the aforementioned topics we can become beings that are not only literate but beings that can excel at communication using our literacy skills through our reading and writing skills. A lofty goal yes. But just IMAGINE.