This article seems to be opening some fresh wounds around Omaha.

Mark Boal of Rolling Stone writes this piece on the kid who opened fire on Von Maur last year. Basically, his premise is that the national and local media basically did some bare-bones reporting on the story, and he is going to swoop in and save the journalistic day.

The result is an article that goes into painstaking detail of this kid's life (and in some instances, too much detail--see the part about this kid's mom cheating on his dad. I think someone has been reading too many adult sites or something.). There certainly is some journalistic merit to this article, and you can tell that Mr. Boal did some pretty serious reporting.

However, this comes with the price of some heavy arrogance and typical excuse-making.

First of all, much of the details to the story of the shooter that appear in this article have been reported on ad nauseum by the Omaha media. It was known he had an abusive early childhood, known that he bounced around several homes/clinics, and known that neither of his parents would take him into their homes. It was known that he did drugs, tried to sell drugs, made threats, was violent as a child, etc.

The biggest difference, I suppose, is that a lot of these stories did not come with the first-hand accounts and very awkward pornographic details that come with this story. So, uh, thanks--I guess. But to imply that the local media didn't hack it with the follow-through on this story is the height of arrogance and irresponsible. Perhaps, Mr. Boal, the local media was not inclined to include some of the uncomfortable "down and dirty" details because:

A. They were not absolutely necessary to paint an accurate picture of what happened in this kid's life, and
B. The local media knows its market in Omaha, and
C. Maybe they were focused on the victims of the tragedy.

Which leads to the second, and most important, point of contention: the other premise of this piece.

I understand that it is important to study the backstory of events in order to better understand them. And I think it is important to understand this story, to understand what physically and sexually abusive childhoods do to people as they grow older--and the tragic conclusions they may sometimes bring. These are things that we, as a people, need to better understand so we can all eventually become better parents, brothers, sisters, friends, social workers--just better members of society in general.

However, this article does not seem totally interested in that. In fact, this article seems much more interested in making excuses as to why this happened. And they go as follows:

--Bad parents.
--Bad step-parents.
--Nebraska.
--Globalization.
--Psychological drugs.
--Corporate ownership of farms.
--McDonald's.

Among others. I think my favorites are "globalization" and "corporate ownership of farms." Apparently because there's not enough shucking jobs available in Eastern Nebraska, high school drop outs can't get jobs. Or something. And this, of course, leads to too many video games, which leads to too many drugs, which leads to 8 people dead at a department store.

Of course, I'm exaggerating. However, the point is that this article goes beyond painting a picture of a wounded and fragile kid who went over the edge one day. No, everything needs an answer these days. It can't be that the kid is just crazy. It has to be someones fault! The father, whose wife did not want the kid to live in their house because he had threatened to kill her on too many occasions (how selfish!). The mother, who apparently had slept with too many people. The State of Nebraska, who dared to eventually put the kid out on his own after it was deemed that he had made enough progress to get on with life. The family farmer, who couldn't compete with corporate farms and offer him a job. (By the way, I don't mean to harp on this point too much, it is just insulting that Mr. Boal apparently thinks that jobs in agriculture are the only option for high school graduates and/or drop outs--after all, it's not like there are any other industries or jobs available in Nebraska.)

There is merit in reporting on the story behind the story. It is a crucial function of journalism. But to write off the hard work of local reporters and to disregard the pain of a community and--most importantly--the pain of the victims families and friends in the name of writing a in-depth piece about an extremely troubled young man and the failings of other people and institutions that led to a tragic event is, to put it lightly, unfortunate. The tone of the article--that of "I work for a big important magazine, and I'm going to teach this cow-town a lesson on what they all screwed up"--is insulting.

Hopefully Mr. Boal will be learning a lesson through all of this, as well.

**EDIT: I did forget to mention one thing that I absolutely agree with Mr. Boal on: it was borderline tragic how quickly this story--and so many important, tragic stories--leave the national news cycle in the matter of a couple of days anymore. It is a weird and sad existence that we live in that we've developed such a national case of ADD that we cannot focus on terrible events that effect our fellow Americans (and others across the world) for more than a couple of days.

*Steps off soapbox*

Labels: Arrogant Journalism, Omaha, Rolling Stone, Von Maur