"Another example of gun violence in America"

So reported one of the national news broadcast companies on the morning news.

Now, let me be the first to say that this is a tragedy.

But it's a tragedy in part because the newspaper refused to prosecute the nut job who ultimately committed acts of violence.

Once again, the perpetrator was well known to be violent and dangerous.

The commentary would have been better put if it had been "another example of the authorities doing absolutely nothing whatsoever about a dangerous nut".

But that doesn't fit the script much.

Added to that, as tragic as this event was, and it was, it's local news.  It isn't national news.  The press only regards it as national news as it is 1) violent; and 2) involved firearms; and 3) involved the press.

It's sort of a pornography of violence really.  People are fascinated by violence.  The press therefore reports on it.  And the press generally feels that guns are bad.  The press likes the press a lot, and so things that happen to the press are of course highly newsworthy in a major way.

The press doesn't like issues to be too complicated, so it won't say something like "another dangerous mentally impaired individual commits an acts of violence in spite of everyone knowing he was dangerous."  That just doesn't report to the script.

Focusing to excess on a local news story of this type and making it a national one does however, which is a way that the press itself is complicit in the story.