A high school student gunned down nine people Monday before ending his own life. Did you notice?

The mass-murder played backup to Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, and Terri Schiavo on the cable newscasts. My cursory survey of the newspaper boxes outside my condo suggests that the killings didn't make it above the fold in most major dailies. The Red Lake massacre couldn't be read within the window of the dispensers carrying the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, and Washington Times. Only the Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer, of the newspapers I saw, devoted above-the-fold coverage to the slayings. The number of deaths at Red Lake certainly compares to Columbine, but the level of news coverage does not. Why?

Columbine is a wealthy, white suburb a few miles outside Denver. Red Lake is in an Indian reservation midway between Minneapolis and Winnipeg. Does race, economics, and geography have something to do with the disproportionate coverage for the approximate events?

Columbine followed on the heels of school shootings in Paducah, Kentucky, Springfield, Oregon, and several other communities. Could it be that the American public has become desensitized to children killing other children?

In April of 1999, Democrats still had the gun-control issue on the table. Partly because the killings of fourteen people at a suburban school served those political interests, Columbine remained in the headlines and served as the focal point of a Michael Moore film. Gun control as an issue, as evidenced by a few thousand people showing up to the most recent Million Mom March, is if not dead then sleeping. It's a loser for Democrats. Does the paucity of media coverage on the Red Lake tragedy have anything to do with the fact that multiple-victim public shootings are no longer so closely tied to political crusades?

It's exactly what it is. It has nothing to do with their latest "issue". Namely, the right to kill in certain circumstances (abortion, terminal illness, laziness...etc). What they'll never see, is that the crusade to de-emphasize the importance and sanctity of human life is what makes these school shooting possible.

I mean to say "It has EVERYTHING to do with their latest "issue"".

I once had a liberal professor (surprise?) who claimed that things were just the same as they always were, just better reported these days. So, it's not like there are more school shootings these days, just better reported...remember that.

Where young crazies used to walk in the one-room school houses opening fire and screaming praise to Cesare Borgia, just their anti-social heroes have changed, that's all.

I think race has nothing to do with the amount of coverage. The press already has their three enough big stories right now and school shootings are becoming passe(if it was a slow news week this would be all that you heard about). I don't see how any of this can be blamed on liberals.

Michael Jackson?? That's what they've picked as one of the big stories?? Methinks we all need a reality check.

We're turning into Europe.

ASDF: "We're turning into Europe."

Yeah. Where's my George Michael update?!?!

Could the de-emphasized coverage have something to do with the fact that the perpetrator in this case is a racialist American Indian, and not white guys, like in Columbine, or heterosexual white guys, like in the Matthew Shephard case? It just doesn't fit the liberal agenda to highlight the fact that there are minorities who are despicable racialists, too.

"News," then, is not news in the truest sense, for if it was these events that go against the norm and against "conventional wisdom" would receive front billing. Instead, "news" is what reporters are more comfortable with: events that forward their (perhaps subconscious) agenda.

Just a theory. Anyone agree or disagree?

Re: the usual knee-jerk calls for gun control and confiscation from political liberals, I have to think it is a case of give it time and the usual response will emerge. Conservatives have largely won the battle over the Second Amendment, as Dan outlines. But it seems this tragedy may still be seized upon as a means for Handgun Control, Inc. (know known as the Brady Center), etc. to reclaim some lost ground.

"'News', then, is not news in the truest sense....Anyone agree or disagree?"

I think that there is a healthy strain of that in our news. I don't think it is all ideological. I don't think anybody wakes up one day and says "I'm going to be a complete ideological shill." I can believe that Mapes believes those memos have a reality. I also believe that no matter how good she reads in other situations, she's an atrocious reader for tone on this one.

But I would agree that it is a force in media and I think you are right on with this one.

Columbine was a commentary on empty white society. The elements of fascism sure helped, as what liberal could resist the cluster of White+American+Fascism? Add "Suburban" in there and it's party dip!

White, American, Fascist, Bourgeoisie is an important part of a balanced liberal breakfast.

We as a population seem to becoming more and more fascinated with weird tabloid type personal interest stories than we are with real news.

The Michael Jackson story is pure fluff yet it typically tops most newscasts and news publications.

Dumbing down of America? Very European baby, yeah.

Oh, by the way: George Michael is a straight construction worker living with a wife and two kids in Idaho.

Asdf, that's no way to give a George Michael Update. You need to do it like Rock over London would: "The Naughty One has been seen with his wife and two kids in Idaho..." and then throw in some oh so cutesy double entendre.