One local newspaper publisher had a surprisingly outspoken take on this. Spargur said his paper was planning several Columbine anniversary stories to report changes in law and rescue agencies' policies and procedures prompted by the shootings. I think people generally are just getting a little tired of it. Meanwhile, a number of media and crime advocacy groups are using the Columbine anniversary to encourage self-examination by news organizations. The Justice Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that promotes alternatives to incarceration, recently released a report, School House Hype, that criticizes the media for clustering recent school shootings into a false trend.
Schools are the safest place for kids to be.
How and why The Berkeley Media Studies Group, which advocates coverage of violence from a public health perspective, studied Columbine coverage in several California newspapers and reached a counterintuitive conclusion. However, a myopic media focus on major stories can leave news consumers in the dark about local crime. And the issue is not how to better cover the big events like Columbine. It's how we can better cover routine violence that happens in our own back yards. Paul Klite of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, a Denver-based group that criticizes TV news for airing excessive mayhem, was less pleased with the media's Columbine performance.