Sandy Hook Shooting - Admission/Application Essay Example

Researched argument paper Mass media are a device that is expended for communication (PMC). Information is transferred from one place to another by the use of various medium. News can be in writing, chromatic or acoustic. Written modes of communication include the newspapers, magazines journals among others. The chromatic method of communication includes the telecast while the acoustic enmeshes the radio (Bolton and Olsson). The development of internet has made a transfer of information easier and quicker (Nayab and Edwards). Whatever happens on one corner of the world can be detected on the other corner via the use of electronic media. News reporters are accredited for giving out information that is precise and informative to their audience. Most of the international newscasters usually practice a high standard information transfer. They usually respond to the situation and collect information very fast. If the evidence is credible, the regularly transmit them. Most of the national broadcasting also exercise eminence activity (Thoman and Jolls). There are however some who give out information without considering their effect to the society. Since they are there to collect money, the newscasters are always rejected by the society. The channels play the function of popularizing the public opinion in the community (Ravi). The role has seen a growth of democracy in nations where the citizens dictates how they want to be governed. The media are thus expended as a device to give that information to the government. In a controlled rule of law countries, this role has greatly been declined since the government is the one that control the media. The media have also played a role of playing politics mostly under the influence of money. Sometimes individuals who want to gain popularity in a certain community will resolve to hold the media in their backs in order to ascend. The tactic usually see to it that the media owners gain a lot of favours that include money in their account. They neglect their professional duty to give time and focus to the person. The Sandy Hook school shooting is an example of how the media differently give the information to their audience. The shooting that happened on December, 2012 is extensively reported. The incident saw 26 people dead. Six of the fatalities were grownups and twenty children (CNN Edition). The culprit was reported to be Adam Lanza from the Newtown Connecticut. Different media broadcasted the news one of them being the independent paper (Mosier). The author of the article interviews Will, who is the head of communication in Newtown Connecticut. Dave Mosier asks several questions concerning the town’s preparedness to such events. Mosier aims to get what the police and the communication response is, towards the future occurrence of that manner. Will admit that it is impossible for any department to be prepared enough for any event. The reason is that when the event will happen remains unknown. He says that the only thing that can be done is to teach the community how to respond to such occurrence. The community must inform the police as soon as possible so that they can do whatever they can before the damage becomes uncontrollable. He says that his department received the news and responded on time, but there was little they could have offered given that the shooting had already been done. The intention of the author in this article is to reveal to the public the effort and the limitation that the police can offer during such crises. The channel, therefore, gives a positive news to the community. The public will now be aware of the events that might get involved too and how they can manage them without depending 100% on the police and other law keepers. The information also contains the role of the 9-1-1 in such a circumstance, and the public is encouraged to use the service when an urgency need arises. Another newsroom that reported a different case of a school shooting is the Hartford Courant (Altimari). The article written by Dave Altimari focuses on the distribution wrangles of the millions of donations that surrounds different groups. The article that seems to fetch much from the interview of Pat Llodra seems to be baseless and without facts. Llodra argues that the community is almost divided on the basis of how the donations are distributed to the victims. The victims who are mentioned include the two injured teachers, the students who sustained injuries and the families of those who lost their loved ones. Basing an argument on the information given to the public by this paper, one will know that the author of this article was biased as he only gets the news from one individual. The individual may be self-centred and could be doing so to earn sympathy from the readers. The New Haven Register also carry the story concerning the shooting that befall the Sandy Hook School. The article by Vincent Riccio reflects the strategies that the federal government had taken 21 months after the incident (Riccio). The author is not pleased to see that there are no major steps that the government has established to deal with future crimes. He says that the state government had failed the society by failing to pass into law security strategy that can be employed in the schools that can prevent the occurrence of such an event. The strategies that the author claims to be put in place involve the background checks for the mentally ill students. He claims that the mentally ill can be a serious cause of a problem in the school and therefore they need to be checked whenever they come to school. He states that he had witnessed the governor’s television advert reporting that the governor do not support the background checks. The intention of the author is to make the public know the kind of loopholes that are present in the state administration. The weakness repeatedly allows such events to happen to the society regularly. The report is supposed to make a public claim for this operation that will benefit every member of the society. The CNN also carried the news of what transpired in the school during the gunfire (CNN Edition). CNN is one of the global newscasters, and they are credited for their report. The article; Sandy Hook Shooting: What happened? Gives the flow of the event that saw the 26 six people die on the school ground. They report that the suspect had grabbed three guns that he used to execute his plans. He is believed to have executed his mother before moving to the school (CNN Edition). The school principal had earlier gave instructions that the school gates be locked every day as part of improving the security system. The gates were locked when the suspect entered, and he used his gun to shoot the door. The proof of this information is certified. The news continues to tell us that the school had about 700 students, and the teachers tried to make sure that the students were safe. When the police officer was informed about the news, they moved to the school in the shortest time possible. The arriving of the police at the scene triggered assassin to shot himself (CNN Edition). The police had to do a simple work of investigating, but they were not able to attend and save the situation. The information that the author of the CNN gives to the public is beneficial and helps to reveal what exactly happened. Moreover, they may questions the community the following; were the doors open? Did the police take long to arrive? And many others as discussed. The reader is, therefore, equipped with information and now understand how the situation was. The report can be helpful to the school, the government and the society in discussing the way forward (Wanzare). The motivation is that the report tries to give the loopholes and the flaws that allowed the suspect to enter the school and cause the harm. Therefore, the report seems to be genuine as it does not bend on one side of the stakeholders. Considering these different articles, it is plainly truth that different media houses play different roles when broadcasting a single event. They usually come up with news that will well fit their clients. Some of them covers the story to benefit the whole society while others do so to benefit a single client. Those that do their work are genuinely reporting the news, but those that consider to politicise the matter do so for their benefits. I will encourage the information houses to consider the plight of the whole society before seeking to benefit themselves. The spreading of the newscast is a requirement and many countries have assumed the society the right to get information. The freedom of the media have led to the development of the media houses, and the citizens are now getting information in a much quicker way than before. People and states that used to own the media house that could only broadcast the positive sides of their information no longer exist. The private media owners have emerged and are now giving equal opportunity and exposing the wrong doers in the community. However, the media have abused this freedom (Refworld). Media freedom have been abused in many ways. The political class has used the media to divide the nations and the societies for their selfish benefits. Considering the media broadcast of the shooting event, some of the media house never did enough investigation and were only informing the public about one person’s view. The views could be regarded as personal since we do not see any other person who either seconds or denies the views. The report can easily cause society to run into chaos that might lead to harmful damages. In fact, the media fraternity has been the cause of the chaos that we are seeing in different parts of the world today. There is a need to adopt a way of controlling the media freedom today. The professionalism of the reporters must be considered as the most important when broadcasting the news. When some media house reports the news that seems to be self-centred, they must be investigated and if they are found guilty, they need to be charged in a court of law for the offence. Media houses that do not benefit the society needs to be shut down in order to maintain the media that are genuinely reporting the right things. Works Cited Altimari, Dave. Hartford Courant: Newtown Official: Sandy Hook Shooting Donations Divided Town. 12 September 2014. 16 October 2014. Bolton, Kingsley and Jan Olsson. Media, Popular Culture, and the American Century. Stockholm : Falth & Hassler, 2010. Print . CNN Edition. CNN: Sandy Hook shooting: What happened? 12 December 2012. 16 October 2014. Mosier, Dave. The Independent: Will talks about Sandy Hook shooting. 15 October 2014. 16 October 2014. Nayab, N. and Ginny Edwards. How Communication Has Changed Amidst New Technologies. 31 July 2013. 15 October 2014. PMC. The value and use of social media as communication tool in the plant sciences. 11 July 2013. 15 October 2014. Ravi, Bhama Devi. The Hindu: Role, responsibility and ethics: a media study. 10 February 2014. 16 October 2014. Refworld. Freedom in the World 2007 - Samoa. 16 April 2007. 16 October 2014. Riccio, Vincent. New Haven Register Column: 21 months after Sandy Hook, little has changed in Connecticut. 17 September 2014. 16 October 2014. Thoman, Elizabeth and Tessa Jolls. Center for Media Literacy: Media Literacy: A National Priority for a Changing World. 1 September 2004. 15 October 2014. Wanzare, Zachariah O. Rethinking School Inspection in the Third World: The case of Kenya. n.d. 16 October 2014. . Read More