The snipers and the media

The Beltway Sniper was the biggest story of 2002. Cable news channels devoted hours each day to their coverage of the spree. Journalists flooded DC as every media outlet sought a piece of the action. As Jack Censer notes in his book On the Trail of the D. C. Sniper: Fear and the Media (2010) “more news reporters than police were assigned to the sniper case.”

Censer’s book is a fascinating case study of the media in action on a big, evolving story. It is unsparing in its analysis of the motives and mores of journalism and the business of cable news. It asks penetrating questions about the consequences for the public of the feverish quest for eyeballs in a crowded media landscape.

Cable news, to keep its viewers, had to make its fare constantly newsworthy. This encouraged more scoops, as people in the news business call the situation when one reporter or news outlet has a story before others do. But the situation also led to more hyping of the available news when what legitimately might be called a scoop was not available. Together, these tendencies raised the tempo and tenor of reporting.
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Stations came on the air with a loud fanfare heralding important and significant developments in the sniper case. The logic or teleology of the initial announcement was that something big had happened. Staying on the air suggested that something else was going to occur liveat the least, new information, but ideally, a resolution to the case. On the whole, however, these outcomes proved elusive. In any case, new information remained scarce.

“Monkey see, monkey do” prevailed. When one outlet went “wall to wall” with coverage, its competitors followed suit. With little actual news to report, time was filled by rehashed old news and speculation. Profilers and retired law enforcement officers filled airtime guessing about who the sniper was, his motives, law enforcement tactics, etc., etc.

Censer is shrewd about the incentive system for talking heads:

Profilers in general spoke without compensation to media, in order to publicize their skills to private, paying clients. Such a system might well give incentive to say something splashy and memorable.

For producers the best guest was not the most knowledgeable scholar or the most insightful expert. The best guest was the one who could go on camera and fill airtime with memorable soundbites.

For three weeks the Beltway Snipers were the biggest story in the country. Yet, the consequences of all that media attention was to make the public less knowledgeable. The trickle of information was overwhelmed by the deluge of misinformation and pointless, wrong-headed speculation. The more one watched CNN or read the Washington Post, the less one actually knew.

Related:

Hunting the Beltway Snipers