Media stab frenzy

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Has everyone in the UK actually gone blade wielding bonkers or has the mysterious media zeitgeist decided that knife crime is this months theme?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's important not to ignore the possibility that we're hearing more about stabbings in the press because more stabbings are actually happening. The fact that so many victims and perpetrators are very young has helped increase the media-sensation aspect of it too, though.

Also, I can't help but think there's a terrible irony in the stabbing of that anti-gun campaigner. Moral of the story: try and avoid being a grandma at 33.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
There was a discussion on Radio 4 a few days ago that I half payed attention to. Someone (a medic I think) was saying that for most purposes knives don't need to have sharp points and that this is what causes the majority of serious injuries, which is a pretty good erm, point. Of course to counter that someone else was then quoted as saying this was all well and good but that legislating against pointy knives would unfairly penalise law abiding fish lovers. Hmm.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
It's important not to ignore the possibility that we're hearing more about stabbings in the press because more stabbings are actually happening.
Of course, but it's very very sudden. In terms of reporting it's not a trend, it's a spike (yes, I know). And you get this with various memes from time to time. I think to an extent it's a question of focus. News outlets must only pass on a tiny amount of what they are presented with, it's a selective filtering process.
Also, I can't help but think there's a terrible irony in the stabbing of that anti-gun campaigner. Moral of the story: try and avoid being a grandma at 33.
And they've arrested her grandson. Maybe there is a link though, success in tackling the availability of guns means more knives?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Of course, but it's very very sudden. In terms of reporting it's not a trend, it's a spike (yes, I know). And you get this with various memes from time to time. I think to an extent it's a question of focus. News outlets must only pass on a tiny amount of what they are presented with, it's a selective filtering process.

Yes, and I appreciate that, but last year the number of under-18s murdered in London was up more than 50% on 2006, and this year looks to be going the same way. With the best will in the world, this cannot be blamed on 'media frenzy' - either those kids died or they didn't, right? It's a question of hard figures as much as it is of reportage.

And they've arrested her grandson. Maybe there is a link though, success in tackling the availability of guns means more knives?

And if, by some miracle, the Govt. succeeds in getting guns and knives off the street, then what? Kids going at each other with apple corers, corkscrews, things-for-getting-stones-out-horses'-hooves, Queen Mum souvenir letter openers? It doesn't bear thinking about!
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Yes, and I appreciate that, but last year the number of under-18s murdered in London was up more than 50% on 2006, and this year looks to be going the same way.
Right. so that's actual figures? That's the question I'm asking. So the answer is yes, everyone in the UK has gone blade wielding bonkaz.

Some people are really touchy. You don't generally hear too much about the back story to these events or the reasons for attacks but I wonder how much of it has to do with perceived 'offense'? I don't think it's unrelated to the cultural environment that can produce things like legislation against mocking religions or whatever.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yes, I think there has been a real increase in the absolute number of cases of this sort, and it's quite frustrating to talk to people who seem to think the wicked meedja are basically inventing murder stories.

Your point about how little is said about why these incidents happen in the first place is well made, but I mentioned somewhere on here the other day an interesting trend in the past few years of bereaved mothers interviewed in the press declining to take the standard "innocent angel with so much to give" line and instead admitting that their kid was often in trouble - just nothing like the kind of trouble that morally justifies a death sentence, of course.
Then again, there are also kids who aren't involved in gangs in any way and happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - trying to break up a fight, inadvertently 'disrespecting' some coked-up gangtsa wannabe prick, or whatever.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
it's quite frustrating to talk to people who seem to think the wicked meedja are basically inventing murder stories
I think there are such things as news fads. Certain themes get trendy for a while, it's hard to fathom exactly why mostly but I think it's interesting to chart it.

Is that the same as suggesting that some evil cartel is inventing stories?

A lot of things happen in a city each day and most of them do not make the national news, that means that there is a lot of scope for filtration. Editors will inevitably be guided by the prevailing political / cultural climate. What was important one season may not warrant a mention the next. There's no suggestion of nefarious action.
 

ripley

Well-known member
Yes, I think there has been a real increase in the absolute number of cases of this sort, and it's quite frustrating to talk to people who seem to think the wicked meedja are basically inventing murder stories.

It is equally frustrating to talk to people who seem to think that, out of the millions of events that occur each day, what appears in news articles is somehow naturally more important or relevant than what did not make it into print.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It is equally frustrating to talk to people who seem to think that, out of the millions of events that occur each day, what appears in news articles is somehow naturally more important or relevant than what did not make it into print.

Your point being? There's a reason I don't get into the national papers when I cut myself shaving, whereas a 16-year-old being stabbed to death in a suburban street does. Some things ARE more important than others. I'd have thought this was pretty self-evident to anyone more than, ooh, a day or so old.
 

mms

sometimes
I think there are such things as news fads. Certain themes get trendy for a while, it's hard to fathom exactly why mostly but I think it's interesting to chart it.

Is that the same as suggesting that some evil cartel is inventing stories?

A lot of things happen in a city each day and most of them do not make the national news, that means that there is a lot of scope for filtration. Editors will inevitably be guided by the prevailing political / cultural climate. What was important one season may not warrant a mention the next. There's no suggestion of nefarious action.

i think it's the number of kids getting killed, teens, and the massive growth, the uk media are obsessed in a really schizo way with kids, alot of whether they're angels or villains depends on class, (read promise in some cases )
one of the oddest phenomenon recently has been maddie the lost ( dead) girl who had a working class cargo cult style copyist, who thought that if they did everything that maddie's parents did in the gaze of the media they could make some good money, it was a pretty primitive scheme but it also underpinned and undermined the whole theatre of the British press and how unforgiving it is, the fact that the copy cat family saw the whole maddie episode as a potential access to money and fame but had no chance being taken seriously from the off.
You get the same polarising weirdness, between 'gang related' and 'promise,' 'angels', etc all these words and terms used to note whether a life lost was a terrible tragedy or a product of bad parenting, drugs, gangs etc... which is an easy way again to get off the hook......hoodies....hoodies are just ghosts, the media's spectral presence on the streets of Britain, a deathly image in non descript garb to absorb and reflect the ills of society.
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason

reeltoreel

Well-known member
Your point being? There's a reason I don't get into the national papers when I cut myself shaving, whereas a 16-year-old being stabbed to death in a suburban street does. Some things ARE more important than others. I'd have thought this was pretty self-evident to anyone more than, ooh, a day or so old.


Well, yes. But it's also pretty self-evident to anyone who's looked at the way the news media work that some stories are made to be more important than others for reasons other than, say, the 'public good'. The possibility of news fads, or certain issues being given more prominence than the bald facts would warrant, is there.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well, yes. But it's also pretty self-evident to anyone who's looked at the way the news media work that some stories are made to be more important than others for reasons other than, say, the 'public good'. The possibility of news fads, or certain issues being given more prominence than the bald facts would warrant, is there.

Yes, and I appreciate this - The Maddie Thing being the ultimate case-in-point, of course. But people sometimes seem so eager to show how aware they are of this tendency that they over-compensate and sound like they're denying objective facts. I mean, yes, the coverage given to any given teenage murder (for example) varies a lot, but when a report comes out saying "There have been X killings this year compared to Y last year", there's not quite so much room for debate.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Everything in a news report has been selected from a larger set of events and given a certain priority. For the sake of 'objectivity' I'd say it's important to recognise that, constantly. It's not a matter of being 'eager' to demonstrate media awareness. By definition we do not know about that which we are not (made) aware of (unknown unknowns).

This is probably stretching rationalism too far for some rationalists but all most of us can really say about these events and statistics is that we have read or heard what someone else has to say about them. I can say with a good amount of certainty that there appears to have been a recent increase in the amount of news stories about stabbings but beyond that I don't have direct or complete knowledge of what everyone is up to all the time. Hey, maybe that's why some people want to know what everyone is up to all the time? ;) So I have to take these stats on faith essentially. Is that what 'objective facts' means?

But let's be clear, in starting this thread I was asking a question. When I say 'mysterious media zeitgeist' that's pretty much exactly what I mean. It's not code for 'evil cabal of satanic nazi peadophile conspirators'. I think the question is worth asking and the trend, actual or media, is worth considering.
 
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ripley

Well-known member
Your point being? There's a reason I don't get into the national papers when I cut myself shaving, whereas a 16-year-old being stabbed to death in a suburban street does. Some things ARE more important than others. I'd have thought this was pretty self-evident to anyone more than, ooh, a day or so old.

Well you see, Mr. Tea. England (just as an example), is a pretty big country. there are a lot of people living in it. millions, even. In any population of millions it is statistically likely that there are going to be a large number of crimes. more, for example, than any one newspaper could report. I'll give you some examples:

according to the Home Office, there were over 17,000 recorded "serious wounding or other acts endangering life" in England in 2005-2006. ( According to the definition, that includes stabbing, and I bet there were more than one or two who were 16 years old, just based in statistical likelihood. )

Advocacy orgs in England suggest around 100,000 kids go missing every year.

According to crimestatisticsorg.uk (the Home Office website), in 2005/2006 over 13,000 rapes were recorded offenses in England.

so, those numbers mean that it would be a bit difficult for any one newspaper to report on each crime individually. this means there must be some method of sorting it out. You suggest "importance" is the method they use.

possibly all the newspapers have a highly sophisticated "importance-ranking-system" which categorizes the importance of each person and crime based on totally objective factors that have nothing to do with race, class, gender, or other social category, nothing to do with the world view of the editors and reporters, nothing to do with the interests of the advertisers who fund the newspapers (and who their markets are). If that is the case, then the most important crimes are identified through this objective, socially neutral process and then an article is written about it. voila.

Or on the other hand, maybe it's totally obvious which of the seventeen thousand serious woundings really matters and any fool would know it was that one that occured in that one place with that kid, and all the other ones are really unimportant serious woundings whom we don't care about for some obvious reason.

or maybe, just maybe, the interests of advertisers, the world view of reporters and editors, their conscious and unconscious biases, and even just their network of social contacts, shaped by their life experience in various ways, affects how they pick and choose which of those tens of thousands of crimes get reported...
 

luka

Well-known member
im not convinced ripley and gavin are human beings, they;re just random academese generators... feed in a question and they will give you the approved answer....
its so predictable...
and then you're supposed to be all like 'wow, i never thought of it that way before, well, except when i was in 6th form and my teachers were telling me about it'
 

mms

sometimes
Here's a case in point. A bouncer was stabbed outside a club in Brighton last week. As far as I know this did not make the national press but you can bet that if garage/grime was high on the agenda as it has been at other times then it would have been more widely reported.

http://theargus.co.uk/mostpopular.var.2298534.mostcommented.concorde_2_bouncer_stabbed_in_back.php

no it probably wouldn't - it would have been picked up by this board more easily though.
Different thing.

i think a massive growth in the number of kids dying from knife wounds - which is what most people and news stories across all the press are concerned about is certainly something that it's worth reporting and bringing up in papers as it's a terrible terrible thing.
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
im not convinced ripley and gavin are human beings, they;re just random academese generators...
Heh. I think ripley is bang on with that post, it's very clear.
no it probably wouldn't - it would have been picked up by this board more easily though.
Different thing.
You think it wouldn't have got national attention? I think there have been moments where 'garage music' was the big media bugbear though. Just as an example of how focus works.
i think a massive growth in the number of kids dying from knife wounds - which is what most people and news stories across all the press are concerned about is certainly something that it's worth reporting and bringing up in papers as it's a terrible terrible thing.
Yes it's bad. But I ask the question because it seems to me there's more knife action in the news than just to do with kids. It's a more general trend. I think you're right in your other post, it's a bit of both - real things happening and also media fixation.

So OK, we accept that there are verifiable figures about more kids dying from knife wounds. Has anyone got a link to a report? And of course the important questions to ask then is 'why?' Has violence itself got worse, more brutal?

Also there were a lot of knives around when I was at school (80s) so excuse me if I don't immediately see this as some shocking new trend.
 
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