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This story is all too tragic: Gunman Opens Fire on Northern Illinois Campus. I watch it on CNN. The headlines flash under the screen with that familiar and gruesome uncertainty of breaking news: FIVE PRESUMED DEAD. FOURTEEN WOUNDED. But my immediate sympathies have been tamped down by the realization that I have seen a similar story last week: a nursing student (a woman) opened fire at the campus of Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge.  I am also thinking of a less recent school shooting in Tuusula, Finland, where an 18-year-old shot and killed eight at his high school. It is hard to make sense of it all. 

Soon after the NIU shooting, the public learns that the shooter was a former graduate student named Steve Kazmierczak.  A video of his dad declaring “I am a diabetic” plays on a continuous loop on every television news channel. We learn that there were no red flags and that the shooter had been a very promising student. It becomes clear he went off his meds. We, the viewers, become bombarded with the same few facts over and over again.  We feel sorry for the victims’ families, even if we lose track of the victims as quickly as we lose track of the tragedy. Each school shooting - random, senseless and independent - appears to be the same story. The noise buzzes for a while amid breaking headlines. Then it gets lost in other noise. This is the infotainment age.

Similarly, watching the first car bombing was a horrifying experience. The next 100 were equally horrifying, but after so many explicit clips, audiences have become desensitized. Nothing surprises anymore. And no matter how horrific a car bombing or school shooting may look on television, it is only on television. The buzz has become part of the background. Each subsequent tragedy gets less coverage, and the depth of that coverage is less thought provoking than the preceding one. Old news, unfortunately, gets few views.

In fairness, the media gets paid for bringing news that is, well, new. Car bombings and to a lesser degree, school shootings, do not satisfy our insatiable need for infotainment. The television news media does an excellent job of framing breaking stories inside of SMART boards and presenting statistics on cool - albeit confusing - 3-D holograms. And online news can be equally superficial.

I have copied and pasted the first paragraph of the NIU shooting as it was first covered by major news sources.

The New York Times The man who opened fire on students in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University was described by police on Friday as a 27-year-old former sociology student there who had been highly regarded, but who had begun to act erratic after he stopped taking medication.

National Public Radio The gunman who shot and killed five people at Northern Illinois University before turning the gun on himself had recently become erratic after stopping his medication, authorities said

Los Angeles Times A gunman accused of killing five students in a Northern Illinois University classroom Thursday had stopped taking medication two weeks ago “and became somewhat erratic,” campus police said Friday

The Arizona Republic The man who gunned down five people at Northern Illinois University in a suicidal rampage became erratic after halting his medication and carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case, police said Friday

The Dallas Morning News The man who gunned down five people at Northern Illinois University in a suicidal rampage became erratic after halting his medication and carried a shotgun to campus inside a guitar case, police said Friday

Only hours after the shooting, the story is taking shape. The shooter was a good student. He took some kind of medication and then went off of them. Does all of this lead to the horrible shooting? No. But the message seems clear to me.

The shooter went offs his meds and then he did the unthinkable.

What he was taking is not important, apparently, but if this is true, then the solution seems equally clear: Medicated individuals need to stay medicated, or else.

The trend seems to be this: that the more frequent a tragedy is, a car bombing say or a school shooting, the less it is covered by the news media. As a result, we never talk about what causes car bombings or schools shootings. Those discussions -if they occur at all - get lost in the hum of persistent, flashing background noise. We get bored. We change the channel to American Idol or visit YouTube. Then the next tragedy occurs and we shake our heads and say, “what is this world coming to?”

Of course, even if we had the answers, none of them will bring solace to the victims or their families, but simplifying a story does little to raise public awareness or to help us understand the increasing frequency of school shootings. The public needs to at least partially understand an issue before it can address it. The media has to be a better job of informing the public, of raising the issues and of asking “why is this happening” as much as presenting “what is happening”.

I make these remarks with a guilty conscience. I used to be a high school English teacher, so I should feel a painful connection to the professors and students at Northern Illinois University. I have experienced the chill of lock-downs. I have felt the vulnerability of wanting to help and the powerlessness of waiting for the school principal to announce that “students can move to their next class”. In the end, my experiences amounted to precautions. My school’s administration acted in good judgment. I am thankful for their preparedness.

And yet I am sad, frustrated and confused. Schools used to be sacred ground, at the very least sanctuaries for the young and inexperienced, at the most ivory towers for scholars and intellectuals. But at some point in the last 15 years, schools have become battlegrounds for senseless violence. No longer sacred, they are now the targets of misguided, often youthful rage. And although each shooting appears to be an independent act of senseless violence, we must acknowledge that this trend is a recent one. It was not until the mid 90s that school shootings became a serious threat. And it wasn’t until after the Columbine tragedy that this trend - the idea any day a person could walk into a school and open fire - penetrated public awareness. Click here for a complete list of school shootings worldwide.

I cannot blame all my frustration on the media’s dumb-downed coverage. Viewers tune-out when news becomes complicated or old. But with every school shooting, there is more to the story than what the news media covers in the first twenty-four hours. The public needs to start thinking about this. Accepting the tragic reality that there will be another school shooting is not good enough.

I am not willing to accept this reality. Are you?

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Tags: Culture, education reform, school shootings