ABSTRACT
Turn on the television to catch the Diamondbacks. A news flash interrupts the baseball game. It’s the video camera view from the Channel 33 news helicopter. You recognize the pilot, know his name. He has a hard-rock theme song and music video that hints at war journalism or at least manly courage and his skill at reporting traffic accidents. His helicopter hovers over the schoolyard (you recognize South High, or the filmed images of the school, though you’ve never been there in person). Maybe a couple dozen teenagers mill around. Almost as many police are there, costumed in riot gear, wearing masks to protect themselves from the wafting tear gas. You watch the television news trucks arrive and the attractive blond reporter set up to conduct interviews-live, on-thespot. In tones and facial expressions a little out of proportion (it seems to you) with the basic story, that a rock or two got tossed. School security officers called in police. Reporters intercepted the radio call. As she speaks to the camera, kids mug, jumping up and down to get into the shot with her. It seems as much a carnival as a riot. Seeing the images on television, parents have rushed over to make sure their children are okay. Finally, the public information officer for the police department pronounces the incident finished. But television coverage goes on. The images play over and over, making you feel each time that the events themselves are recurring, over and over. Something about the camera angle from the helicopter reminds you of the rampage killing that day at Columbine. You’re glad that your daughter doesn’t have to go to that school in the video frame, what with those poor kids and the gangs and guns (you don’t let your thoughts go further). Your attention wanders. Your eyes drop from the screen to the
newspaper in your lap, at the tiny headline on the back page of the Arizona Republic. In 10-point font it whispers that a scuffle broke out at the Scottsdale school nearby-where the country-club kids go. It seems that a few rocks got thrown. The principal soon had things under control. It happened last week.1
