Xbox Killings?!

[sinning.dragon]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/L....sentencing.ap/index.html


I can't begin to exclaim over how frustrating this is. Especially because it's nothing out of the ordinary for the media to do this. Those killings had nothing to do with the xbox (unless there's some proof shown that just isn't included from what I looked into). As far as I could tell, an xbox just happened to have been stolen. But, of course everyone knows that video games force people to become crazy and kill people, kind of like DnD. [/sarcasm]

Sidenote: Sorry if this is old news to some, but it's news to me. :/

[Hydrobond]

I don't understand what is frustrating about this article. 
There was nothing in this article about video games leading to violence, only that they were trying to get back their stolen property.   In fact, the article seemed to blame the killings on mental disorders, though that seemed like a weak defense.

[Tynstar]

I think it is the title of the article.

[sinning.dragon]

It's that the all the media I could find that covered this trial referred to the killings as the xbox killings and then had to continually throw out how the killing occured after an xbox was stolen.

And the defense did blame the killings on their mental disorders (adhd wtf?), but the media doesn't say the killings happened because they wanted their stuff back. Direct quote from the article: "Two of the three men convicted of killing six young people with baseball bats in a dispute over an Xbox video game system should be executed, a jury said." That doesn't sound to me like they want the reader to think that the accused were just trying to get their stuff back.

[SFS]

Leela “Kids don't turn rotten just from watching T.V.”
Fry “YEAH!  Give a little credit to our public schools.”




Is there nothing we can't learn from that show.

[Arrrhalomynn]

People like giving cases silly names, so it's easier to keep them apart than by their case number. If the murders hard occured after a disagreement about a bible verse it would've been called the bible killings.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

See, the X-Box kills you. Love Sony.

Maybe I'll read the article maybe I won't.

[Hydrobond]

It's that the all the media I could find that covered this trial referred to the killings as the xbox killings and then had to continually throw out how the killing occured after an xbox was stolen.

And the defense did blame the killings on their mental disorders (adhd wtf?), but the media doesn't say the killings happened because they wanted their stuff back. Direct quote from the article: "Two of the three men convicted of killing six young people with baseball bats in a dispute over an Xbox video game system should be executed, a jury said." That doesn't sound to me like they want the reader to think that the accused were just trying to get their stuff back.

Exactly, it says "dispute over an xbox" not "xbox trained these people to kill". 
If you are looking to argue that the media is trying to convince people that playing violent video games makes one violent, then take on the of the hundreds that try to convice the reader of that.  This one merely states that people were killed over stolen property. 

[den68]

She kept some of his belongings, including some clothing and the video game system.

Again, it's the title of the article that's misleading. An Xbox was just among some stolen items. Why label them "Xbox Killings"? If you read the article it's clear playing video games had nothing to do with the murders.

But the yahoo's that don't bother to read the article will most likely think other wise. Damn that evil Xbox.

[captain_nintendo]

I agree with Den. This was all about those people being evicted from the place. And of course the dispute over the things that were kept or left behind.

[Mike Leon]

I agree that the title is misleading, although the article plainly states that the Xbox is not the reason for the killings. This is just another case of the media sucking you in with a fancy headline. It works too. I read this article a few days ago, and I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn't have even noticed it if the headline didn't contain the word XBox. The news media knows that killings over property disputes don't interest readers. Killings over video games DO interest readers. It's a hot issue. So they twist information around a little (especially in headlines) to sell more papers.

Den68 points out the biggest problem with this though: Ignorant "yahoos" will attribute the killings to the Xbox, because they don't pay attention to the article.

[Hydrobond]

Nothing about the title really stuck me a missleading, but it's only two letters long so it is very open to interpretation.  The violent video games -> real life violence thing didn't enter my mind even when I read the title.

[Mike Leon]

It's clear in the article that video game violence is not an issue here. But I assure you, the headline was meant to draw attention by leading people to think the article was somehow related to that issue. I know this because that's why I read the article.

I saw the headline, thought "That's about video game violence" and I read the article, only to see that video games had very little to do with the story. Not only was I mislead, I know I was mislead on purpose. My major is Electronic Media. I sit through whole classes where they teach us to write headlines just like that one. You wouldn't believe the Freudian crap these people are trained to do. I don't believe in a lot of it, but some times it's sickeningly effective, case in point.

[Necrosaro420]

Well these people had issues before the xbox incident.