Stupidity, News Outlets, And Children Killing Children

The source material for this rant might, initially, seem wholly unrelated to the world of video games and entertainment blogging but, if you’ll indulge me I’d like to explore a fairly complex issue in the realm of games.  The issue, you may have guessed, is children and violence.  Writing for the BBC, Peter Jackson explores the causes and influences that may have contributed to the horrific beating of two boys aged 9 and 11 by two other boys of similar ages in Edlington, England.  Let me say that no where in Mr. Jackson’s article is there any mention of video games, or whether video games played any kind of role in these boy’s lives.  So what is the point of this piece then, you may ask?

My point about the story’s relevance has as much to do with Jackson’s handling of the story itself.  He consults experts in child mental health, reviews the boys’ histories with child protective services, and apparently has successfully put together some details of their sad and violent lives leading up to the vicious beating of two innocents.  Essentially this is a great feature that is well done, and is an indication of what journalism probably should be.  And yet, what’s the point for Negative Gamer? 

How many stories involving children and violence that concerned games did this much research into the personal histories of the children involved?  Precious few, in my memory.  We all know that if gaming is even remotely involved with a violent news piece, then it becomes the focal point of the story.  On last night’s NGCast the gang joked about how funny it is for Wardrox and Half Left and the other non-Americans to watch Fox News.  And it is funny, frighteningly so.   Certain news sources seem to care very little about research or depth of investigation.

One of my favourite parts of Jackson’s piece involves one of his advisers, Camila Batmanghelidjh who opined;

‘œChildren who behave this cruelly have had extreme cruelty happen to them, their boundaries for violence have been violated, they have an over-familiarity with violence and know how to act it out on other people’

In other words, children react to the world around them and learn to behave based on what they observe, and what happens to them.  Not wanting to sit on one source for child mental health, Jackson consults others as well in the piece, who basically confirm that these violent boys were at risk for a variety of reasons.

Jackson also goes on to explore the types of discipline and the inconsistency with which it was administered for the boys.  He notes that the boys weren’t currently in school as they had been expelled, and that they had, at early ages, already indicated that they were prepared to victimize others who they perceived as being more fortunate than themselves.  When all is said and done, this is as comprehensive a piece as can be written at this point.  He even points out that there are holes in his research that cannot be filled in yet.

So let’s call this rant a public request  to news outlets to actually explore the issues they write about.  I am essentially begging for more responsible news coverage of video games and violence, and how they might relate to children.  Though this may seem like hyperbole, I feel strongly that indulging in the kind of lowest common denominator-type journalism, that the video game industry endures regularly, detracts from sincere explorations of what actually ails society.  Thus proliferating said ails in my opinion.

I’d like to thank Dr. Carl Hindy for the original tweet around this story and, who occasionally indulges my tweets about ways that video games could be used in a Harm-Reduction Model to assist substance abuse sufferers.