American Reporting of School Violence and `People Like Us': A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of the Columbine and Red Lake School Shootings

Abstract

The 1999 shootings at Columbine High School received saturation coverage by the American media. How did newspaper reporting of the 2005 Red Lake Indian Reservation School shootings, the largest school killing since Columbine, compare with the press's representations of Columbine? In this article we perform a qualitative content analysis of three newspapers ( The New York Times as the national paper of record, and local papers in the communities in which the events occurred) over a two-week period following each event. We found that the reporting of Columbine and Red Lake differed in terms of quantity, content, and form. Columbine was immediately marked with social significance and became a national story while Red Lake received significantly less coverage, mostly local. Red Lake reporting was explicitly raced and classed while the prominent role of race and gender in the Columbine killings was largely ignored by local and national media.