NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

<i>Tracey Barnett:</i> Turn on, tune in - drop out in despair

20 May, 2007 05:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Opinion by

KEY POINTS:

I Don't remember the dead 3-year-old boy's name. I've forgotten most facts of the story other than he died at the hands of his parents. But in my mind's eye, I see his face in the photo smiling impishly at the camera, juxtaposed with pictures of his beaten body.

I stared at that child's deep purple arms trying to figure out the degree of violence that must have transpired to inflict that colour. Just two photos were all I needed to make that story come alive off the page.

Why, then, did those simple images evoke far more feeling for the death of one child for me than the media onslaught covering the death of 32 at Virginia Tech just weeks before?

I had been on a busy working holiday in the United States and knew almost nothing about the mass shooting until late the next evening when I flipped on CNN.

This was my introduction: the lower third of the television screen was filled with writing. Headlines moved across the bottom of the picture. Above that was the name of the specific show, repeated across the width of the screen.

Above that were two boxes, one filled with an expert talking about the package the shooter had sent to the media, his title labelled across the bottom of his talking head. Above that, yet another banner announced that the footage I was watching was courtesy of NBC.

There's one more piece to this chaotic visual mess, the piece that stymied me: on the right side of the screen was yet another box. This box was filled with a succession of images the shooter had taken of himself. CNN had cut them together and played them on a loop that repeated perhaps every 90 seconds as others spoke from the left side of the screen.

The killer held a gun up to his head. Cut. The killer held a knife to his own throat. Cut. The killer pointed a gun to the viewer's face point blank. Cut. You saw his madness like flipping pages of a portfolio.

It took me a good three minutes to shift my attention from these sick visuals to listen to what the expert was saying. And what was he telling us?

Airing this madman's media manifesto was completely irresponsible, he argued. Giving airtime to the killer's words and repeatedly showing these images was the very thing that spawned copycat killers.

We must not air this, he kept repeating on the left side of the screen, while on the right side, oblivious to the content of its current expert's speech, CNN continued to cut to the killer pressing another weapon to his cheek.

Like some split-screen fractured media psychosis, one side couldn't connect to the other's dysfunction. What was more madness? Watching the killer display his sickness? Or watching the media lick it up despite its poison? It was like watching Dr Strangelove trying to control his own hand from raising itself into a "Sieg Heil!" - but in real time, on the nightly news.

What's more, I got used to it.

I stopped noticing the images after they rolled past me the second time around. I began tuning out the strange, disjointed message from two screens that ignored each other. I let it go. I switched off any whiff of viewer indignation when my eyes wandered to other headlines or the time in the corner.

With five or more sectors of the screen competing for my attention, how much of the real content of the message is subsumed into a societal wasteland of attention-deficit disorder? Loaded overload won. I felt absolutely nothing about that story.

News directors weigh good taste to decide their final edit. But how many measure a story's impact by gauging restraint as their most effective tool? Show me one image and I understand. Show me 10 and I see nothing.

Martin Scorsese told this month's Rolling Stone magazine: "Television today is constantly grabbing at you. You become just pummelled with information, and you become deadened. The images and the cinema become part of a junk-image world, a junk-image society. You're not going to feel for anything, and that means you're not going to do anything."

This isn't just about less is more. This is about the cost we are all paying for having to stagger under the weight of information excess that is deadening our ability to feel.

I experienced it that night as I watched the coverage of America's deadliest mass shooting.

I just went to bed.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Crime

New Zealand|crime

‘Lock all your doors’: Neighbours recount gunman on loose after Hamilton homicide

10 Jul 07:00 AM
New Zealand|crime

‘Hero’ lawyer who rescued torture victim suspended from practice

10 Jul 06:03 AM
New Zealand|crime

Daughter accused of killing mother says she delayed calling 111 out of fear she'd 'be blamed'

10 Jul 05:14 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Crime

‘Lock all your doors’: Neighbours recount gunman on loose after Hamilton homicide

‘Lock all your doors’: Neighbours recount gunman on loose after Hamilton homicide

10 Jul 07:00 AM

An alarming Facebook post was the first sign something was amiss, a neighbour says.

‘Hero’ lawyer who rescued torture victim suspended from practice

‘Hero’ lawyer who rescued torture victim suspended from practice

10 Jul 06:03 AM
Daughter accused of killing mother says she delayed calling 111 out of fear she'd 'be blamed'

Daughter accused of killing mother says she delayed calling 111 out of fear she'd 'be blamed'

10 Jul 05:14 AM
Man accused of fatal shooting, stealing car at gunpoint appears in court

Man accused of fatal shooting, stealing car at gunpoint appears in court

10 Jul 02:50 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP