"He was such a nice guy."

Pertaining to our discussion about violence in the media, and its effects on behavior, another aspect is the portrayal of violence in the news, and the way in which "factual" violent events are reported. Many of us come to conclusions and beliefs about how violent the world is, and who is violent, through news reports. Even though most of us realize that stories about violent crime often lead newscasts because of their attention-catching nature, we are often less aware of the way standard news reporting misleads us about the nature of violent crime. It seems like such an individual, agentic act, doesn't it? And it often seems totally random. News reporting often does little to dissuade that.

The emerging story of the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Le points to one common occurrence in such reports. Once a suspect has been identified, the first move for the news media is to try and find out more about the suspect- what was he like? who knew him? What led him to do such a thing? And quite often, the media can find someone who knew the suspect in some capacity who claims he was "a nice guy," who they never would have guessed would do such a thing. Such reporting makes the violent crime seem even more random and unpredictable, an effect that can lead the audience to believe violent crime itself is unpredictable and therefore, more threatening to them.

Despite presenting as a "nice guy" to some people, stopping there would be a disservice to victims of violent crime and to our better understanding of such crimes. Those who commit acts like this murder more often than not have some past indications of mental instability, tension with the victim or others, reports made against them, or records of previous violent acts. Though it is too soon to say much about Raymond Clark III, other reports have begun to emerge to suggest that though this attack was shocking, there may be a history of escalating issues that led to this point. These issues seem to be related to Clark's role as a lab technician in the lab where Le worked. This leads to interesting questions about the nature of the workplace, a sometimes insular, high pressure environment. How might structure have interacted with agency here?

This New York Times article takes an interesting, more sociological perspective on this incident by focusing on the workplace. By focusing on the relationships between two groups of workers - the lab technicians and the researchers- they paint a picture that is larger than two individuals. There are stressors and competition attached to this world, and perhaps tensions arise as a function of the structure of this microcosm of a social world.

Yet the article still ends with an ominous note of randomness: "The killing 'could have happened in any city, in any university,' [the Yale president] said. “It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures."

One more note: This type of reporting has been a target of those who seek better reporting on domestic violence for quite some time now. It is viewed as a disservice to victims of domestic violence, and an (often inadvertent) effort to blame the victim, when a perpetrator of domestic violence is described as a "nice guy." For those who would like to put a stop to domestic violence, portraying it as random, and as committed by nice guys who were simply pushed over the edge by their victim, does little to address the root structural causes of domestic violence.

A sympathetic view of the perpetrator: "Johnson wrote that many statements about the perpetrators "had an overly sympathetic quality and implied an element of victimization of the murderers, either by circumstances or frequently by the adult female," such as one killer's mother describing her son as "a victim of divorce." A source said of another assailant, "To him [marriage] was a sacrosanct institution and to violate it was the end of his world."

Also interesting is the racial double standard, which is definitely at play in the Le case: "The survey found a racial double standard. When the perpetrator was a person of color, violence was presented as expected and typical. When the perpetrator was white, the violence was presented as unexpected, out of character or inexplicable, as when the Chronicle included the quote, 'Things like this don't happen in Fremont.'"

We are certainly seeing a huge amount of media focus on this one case, when violent crime, and murder, happen all the time. Why?