Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyway, I do think that the coverage is reasonable. Even if this had happened in the states, the scale of death and the level of planning to undertake this is almost unprecedented, certainly for a lone attacker. If he didn't act alone, it is even more newsworthy, when it affects a country such as Norway, where this shit just doesn't happen.

It depends on the kind of thing. A very unlikely target for a terrorist attack, I agree.
But Finland suffered a bad school shooting a couple of years ago, and I think nowhere is really immune to that sort of lone nutcase, obsessed with guns or far out ideology.

You kind of would "expect" it more in America though

Sorry kalmar I disagree with you there, personally I haven't felt the need to watch this on the telly at all (apart from just to confirm now what I knew they'd be showing), and I haven't really read much into the story either, once it became clear we were dealing with a single psycho with a big chip on his shoulder.

This is one fucking mentalist going properly fucking mental and committing terrible acts of violence and cruelty but that is all it is.

There's really nothing to know about this beyond what we already know, in time the motives might become clearer, but beyond that, what else is there to say or to report?

I think you actually just agreed with me, didn't you? I'm not saying I felt compelled to watch it for hours, because after about 20 minutes it had become clear there was nothing more to report, as I said. My point was that everyone *wants* to know what happened, which is why the coverage keeps rolling...

Well just stick it in the bulletins every half hour and leave it at that, doubtless they're currently interviewing LIVE ON ROLLING 24 HOUR NEWS a dog that lived three doors down from the killer in 1987 and the dog recalled that once the guy bought some dog food even though he didn't have a dog. And that also he had funny eyes.

The dog will convey this to the cameraman with a complex series of barks and tail wags.

It's nothing more than rubbernecking and the best thing people could do is turn the shit off.

FTFY.

I can't even get into these news stories anymore. For me, 9/11 won the news outright. Once you've had the biggest OMFG you can sit there all night waiting for them to shoot Moat, or watch the reports come in about 11/7, but for the last nearly ten years now my attention span for these things has waned to a point where I clocked 5 minutes of this yesterday and the update on the number dead this morning, filed it under 'nazi cunts' and went downstairs to make a fry up and listen to Cornershop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUGbu6Jcrmw

What's so bad about it being on the rolling news? In the uk we have a worrying tendancy to go (as a nation) "oh how sad" and move on when something like this happens in another country. For years we were so desensitized to bombings/shootings/hostage situations in other lands because of the IRA on our own door - for an example half the violence that went on in spain in the 80s didn't even get reported on our news. Maybe there has been anough of a gap between say, the arndale centre and the london bombings to get us to be shocked again.

I think the word I'm looking for here is empathy.

This is all over the news here. There are a lot of racist undertones in Scandinavia also. Really horrific stuf tho I haven't seen anything on tv tho, we don't have news 24 on terrestrial tv or anything like that.

I'm half and half. Stuff like Moat I found too creepy (and indeed boring) doing a sort of vigil on when he was going to be shot or top himself. I relied on friends to update me if anything simply bizarre happens like Gazza turning up. This Norway thing is different and a story worth following because of the impact it will have on Norwegian society and the sheer unusual horror of it. It's different from a car bombing as this is one madman taking time over a long extended period to calmly shoot people in the face, which I find far more unnerving than a simple one-shot explosive-spectacular.

It is better to read the papers about these things than follow the farcical 24 news system. Indeed, I worry sometimes that the current 'update on that story' system is actually destroying worthwhile news. It's definitely destroyed the art of visual journalism on TV. Compare the footage from 'nam and the Nixon elections and Brixton riots decades ago, where journalists ran around capturing amazing footage and interviewing random people there and then with the 'anchor chained to spot next to satalite uplink van in pouring rain for five hours mortified at the idea of being caught away having a piss in the off-chance that Huw Edwards might call on him' stuff we have now.

How about the death toll, the death toll is important, it is what people care about, oh and the human suffering angle, and the fact that we don't know anything about thekiller yet, but we have interviewed his mum's neighbour's cat and as a fox sky notw itvbbc exclusive, we go there live, "meow".

seriously, there is a requirement to inform people, and your "there is nothing left to report" standpoint is bit naive; my wife's sister is in Oslo at the moment and we had been unable to contact her, as such we had a vested interest in seeing what had happened. Sadly, as you state, we were rarely informed of what had happened, but just reupdated with what that damn cat had to say about matters.

News 24 definitely needs a new system. An update for ten minutes every two hours on the big stories, with the odd switch to press conference, and fill the rest of the time with researched stories about the stuff you usually don't get to hear about with a swarm of dedicated reporters in the field left to their own devices handing in their own essays once every few days.

I tend to only watch news 24 or SKY News for about ten minutes or so, unless I'm watch ing FOX, then it is hours. As regards the interviewing of everyone, they ate trying build a picture in a short time; there will be some rubbish, but you've got to play the numbers.

Meanwhile, a lone sad figure sits on a plane to Oslo, fishing rod in one hand, a bucket of KFC in another, weeping gently as he reads that the culprit has been apprehended.

Thank goodness we have the quality press to save us.

They've pixellated out the dead children, which was nice.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... erage.html

I don't think this is quite right. Specifically I don't think that the British attitude to large scale terror, tragedy or accident is that different when it is on our own doorstep.

The day after the London bombings people picked themselves up and went to work as normal. I think we often just get on with things.

The sites of the London bombings and previously the IRA bombings are almost invisible. Unless you know, or are wanting to find out, there is no large place of pilgrimage to paw over the events of the day. The site of the Twin Towers is almost holy ground now. I know the scale and visual impact of what occurred there make this something that sticks in the mind, but even the term 9/11 means that it is forever present. There is no year, just 9/11. I have no idea what year it was, but it might as well have been last year. And the slogan 'never forget'. You aren't allowed to let it go.

Perhaps the mindset is different here. The news rolls as long as people ate interested on detail, then we move on.

I haven't actually seen the tv for a few days, so haven't seen the coverage. I learned about this on this forum yesterday. I looked at the story on the BBC website this morning to see if they had caught the guy and everything was over.

The coverage is there for those who want it. For those uninterested, they can just turn off. It's a nice day out, anyway.

What News 24 (and rolling news in general) needs is a return to the old system.

I remember when BBC News 24 first started up, at a guess I'm saying 1996 or maybe 1997, at the time I was working night shifts on fairly mundane work and to pass the hours I would often have BBC News 24 on right through the night.

Instead of this constant shrilling of trying to find new ways to serve up the same one or two big stories of the day as we have now, what they had instead between the 15 minute bulletins were bits of news from all around the country, which I presume was aggregated from the BBC's local news output around the UK.

They also often had 30 minute or even 60 minute features about all sorts of stuff, with the just the bulletins cropping up every 15 minutes.

In short, you felt you were actually receiving 'more news' as a benefit of having a news channel on constantly, learning more about what was going on in your own country and around the world.

Why they changed the format over time I really don't know (cost, popularity, the competition were doing it differently?), but what I do know is that now you never need to watch News 24 or any other rolling news channel for more than an hour to see and hear just about everything they're going to show to you for the foreseeable future, and that's a real step backwards.

Welp, that's murdoch off the front pages, then.

Re: News 24 changing its style - they was probably when it went international. News from around the country is great, but most of the world wouldn't give a toss.

Ahhh yes I hadn't thought about that, real shame, as you could genuinely watch it for hours and still be seeing new stuff at the end of a ten hour shift.

The politicisation of this story has turned my stomach: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2 ... lim/40322/

Specifically, how many news outlets were saying it was Al Qaeda with no proof at all, and now that it appears he's a white Christian the wording has shifted from "terrorist" to "extremist" or even "madman". Revolting.

I thought, Doctor G, for a moment after reading your first sentence, that you were going to comment on children being at a 'political summer camp'. I find that to be quite odd.

Can't that be explained by the fact that he was apparently acting alone. I dunno I tend to think of terrorist attacks as coming from some sort of organisation. The IRA and many other organisations have always been referred to by the media as terrorists despite them being white and Christian.

I read in The Mirror yesterday (don't shoot me, my Mum reads it so I have a flick through when I go to visit) that an Islamic extremist group had claimed responsibility for the bombing and the massacre.

I'm guessing that isn't actually true, then? (it would be no shock that a red-top has lied, of course)

Or did one claim responsibility and then people discovered that he was just a nutter?

I think a few groups tried to gain quick notoriety by claiming responsibility before details emerged. BBC news reported something similar when I first heard whispers if the breaking story.

I think it's something that often happens following a terrorist attack of any size.

Less so than a church run summer camp though, right? Which are still very common in the US. And to be honest, things like our Scouts and Guides had political overtones to start with too. [edit: hmm, not sure of that now - military overtones perhaps]


Anyway, yes - there were immediate claims from "Helpers of Global Jihad" or something like that. And it's not an entirely unreasonable conclusion to jump to, especially before details of the island shooting was known about.

As for the language change. I see where you're coming from Dr G, and you're probably right in how some of the press are handling it. But the other side of the argument is, terrorists set out to cause terror - hence that description. The Unabomber was a terrorist. This guy? Don't know yet. Though maybe the distinction doesn't matter given the magnitude of the crime.

This may confuse matters more, but I thought I'd look it up in the good ol' Dictionary of Criminology (McLaughlin & Muncie (2008)fact fans).

Terrorism;

"Producing an adequate definition of 'terrorism' is extremely difficult. The League of Nations made the first attempt to create an internationally acceptable designation in 1937. However, the convention of which it was part was never enacted. There have been numerous subsequent attempts to pin down the phenomenon conceptually, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. For the purposes of this discussion, terrorism is defined as an essentially pre-meditated political act. The intention is to inflict serious injury on the civilian population and to influence government policy by creating an atmosphere of fear and threat, generally for a political, religious or idealogical cause. Hence, it also has far-reaching psycho-political implications. Terrorism is also recognised as a criminal act by most legal codes and those groups who are defined by the state as 'terrorists' have to negotiate extreme forms of criminalisation."

So as an individual, assuming he had some sort of cause (which we will find out in due course, but I'm guessing yes) he is a terrorist.

I find this all perfectly congruent. Obviously the assumption of Al Qaeda without evidence has left the media looking silly in updating their story, but they were probably working off the probability of it being them given the number of past incidents in recent history that they've claimed responsibility for. Poor equated to hearing a goal has been scored in a match between a Premier League vs. 4th Division team, and you assuming it's the premier league team who scored. Silly indeed, and poor journalism. You work off a probability guess in the hope of seeming like you're on the ball, and it backfired.

Al-Qaeda is a terrorist, islamist organisation, so those words would apply to any story about them. A lone nutter isn't an organisation, so it's difficult to define him as a terrorist as he doesn't appear to be part of a larger organisation with a history of terrorising acts. The individual is an extremist, nutter, madman. Their act is a one-off action of horrific violence, which no doubt caused terror to those at the time, but probably won't leave people worrying it might happen again if it appears he acted alone and wasn't part of a group likely to conduct future attacks.

35 people dead in China after trains collide btw. The world is not having a good week.

AQ would probably claim responsibilty for earthquakes on New Zealand. It's all in the presentation with them.

The pastor chap predicting the end of the world by October 21st will probably point to all this as evidence of impending doom.

Thing is, it's dead easy to cherry pick isolated and unrelated incidents from around the globe ( or even locally) and declare that people are clearly the wrong group to be existing on Sol 3. It's far to easy to link these to an existence if a grand plan set into action by forces unknown. Which I think is the easy way out. I'm of the firm belief that the vast majority in this world are intrinsically good, and the bad things are perpetrated through those good people being misguided in their beliefs, or the odd outlier on the bell curve that has decided that all the ills that have befallen him are the fault of somebody else. Which is how one arrives at the conclusion that there ate secret cabals at work that explains the misfortunes if a particular group; it's a neat way to abdicate responsibility.

Edit: please excuse typos, I'm on the iPod and my fingers are too big, and autocorrect.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/20 ... ve-updates

Sigh. There's a link to Breivik's video "manifesto" in there. Looks he had a problem with imagined 'Marxist indoctrination'. Presumably seeing the Labour party-organised summer camp as an example of this

I think assuming by default that any act of politial violence anywhere in the world must be the work of the supervillains du jour Al Qaeda is ignorant, counter-productive, and bordering on propaganda.

But hey, what do I know.

I'm guessing he's not going to be overly popular when he comes out.

Hey its not like they blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine or anything! Oh, wait they did.

But at least Manson isn't a violent murderer actively seeking global notoriety (sub please check).

Giving Al Qaeda the credit for everything is the perfect way to encourage them and people to join them. They're the Soviets of our age. Plus making everyone afraid of them again does nothing but help them achieve their goals.

Good lord.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... itors.html

The guy seems just like your average un-hinged internet ranter - hating the Guardian and Gordon Brown, and taking things that Jeremy Clarkson and the Daily Mail say literally.

Charlie Brooker hits the nail on the head as usual.

Charlie 'I knew it wasn't AQ all along, honest' Brooker.

I've made a couple of observations myself today. It makes me feel vaguely ill.

This guy was a lone madman.
Timothy McVeigh was a lone madman.
The Unabomber was a lone madman.
The guy who shot Gabrielle Giffords was a lone madman.
The man who shouted "Kill Him!" at the mention of the name "Barack Obama" was a lone madman.
The London nail bomber was a lone madman
The bloke who flew his plane into the Arizona IRS was a lone madman
The pastor in the States threatening to burn the Koran was a lone madman*
The EDL is a bunch of nutters not worth the attention / the UK Tea Party.

Richard whatsis face, the Shoebomber was a member of a terrorist cell
The underpants bomber was a member of a terrorist cell
John Walker Lindt was a member of a terrorist cell
The army bloke who shot up his barracks was a member of a terrorist cell
Islam4UK are a spokesgroup for Muslims.



*Who did actually burn a Koran a few weeks ago.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this sort of thing is automatic, or largely automatic. It wouldn't be too tricky to make a system that picked up big news stories, sussed out key words and then made domains for them. Of course, having an automated system that makes a profit from a mass-murder isn't any better than doing it by hand.

I've got domain squatters sitting on worthless permutations of domains I own, registered for no other reason than I have the .co.uk of something. There is something wholly depressing about the insatiably greedy (and as you say, automated) machine that tries to scrounge every penny out of everything.