Frames in a News Article (week #6)

Back in December of 2013 there was a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. This tragedy is very close to my heart, as I graduated from Arapahoe back in 2010.  When reading this article "Colorado's School Shooting---Over in 80 Seconds" it’s important to understand the frames being used to get the best understanding of the context. Entman and Rojecki authors of the article, Benign Neglect in the Poverty of News show readers 4 ways of framing or selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text. 

1.      Promote a particular problem or definition

2.      Causal interpretation -or the cause

3.      Moral evaluation – how to feel

4.      Treatment recommendation – what to do

Framing also is how you think about a certain story. 

For the article "Colorado's School Shooting---Over in 80 Seconds" the problem is clear, there was a shooting at a High school. From reading the article we learn of the shooter’s name and of his proposed target (which was later identified as the librarian). The cause of the shooting was that the shooter (Pierson) was asking for a librarian, who was his target. The librarian who also runs the debate team had disciplined Pierson a month before the attack. The moral evaluation of this tragedy makes for readers and those informed to feel many things, Sheriff Grayson Robinson called the tragedy ‘evil’, a word that might make readers feel something of hatred for what happened. After learning of the victim (Claire Davis) who was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ you feel heartbroken. You also think about her parents and what they must be going through knowing their daughter has been shot. You wonder how different things would have been if she was not sitting where she was when she was ‘shot point-blank in the head’. You also could feel angry at the situation as a whole, thinking that something like this should have never happened, especially in a town where Columbine High School is so close. Sure this 80 second tragedy had quick response from the deputy sheriff who worked at the school, but it should have never happened in the first place. From these feelings we can work on the treatment of the situation. We can learn from something like this. Take notes from the quickness of the sheriff to end it. Learn from actions of the shooter, wonder what things led him to do something like this, what really provoked him. Above all the best treatment would be to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

This is just one article out of many that covered this tragedy. I know just from reading this article and many others that certain parts of this tragedy were left out. It then becomes the responsibility of the consumer to find other articles and make sure that they are getting the most accurate accounts of what happened. Knowledge is power and knowledge of something like this can help ensure that it never happens again.

  

Extra! From the Author: As this happened so near and dear to my heart I just want to say, how comforting it was to see my community help out everyone involved in this. As a community we began to heal quickly after this happened and I have never been more proud to have been a Warrior. The reminder, “Choose to Love” (a phrase that the Davis family came up with after this sits in front of the school in Clarity Commons (a garden built to remember Claire), reminding all who see it to in fact, choose love. Something so simple, yet so meaningful for our community.