However negative news could be inflicting fear. Words like “Crisis, suffering, hunger, murder, rape, agony, pain, hate” are common. And people react to fear in different ways.

Besides that, there is so much that could affect a person. Bullying, upbringing, personality, social status, social acceptance, ability, patience, trust, loneliness, ones academics, unstable emotions, confusion.

Surely we all have good and bad inside? I know ones perceptions of good and bad can be entirely different to one another’s…
Does anyone here reckon the kid understood what he was doing, was wrong?

Maybe he WAS just a lil messed in the head.. With the parents failing to react to it in time.

I had a chat with a work colleague the other day about crime in their area etc. And having a paranoid father, Im witness to seeing someone going to the extreme, security wise.
He was explaining that since crime has increased(in his area), it has become difficult to raise his kids as he would like.

When I was young, the majority of my friends, I met on the streets in and around me area. During this time, on an average weekend, its was chaos. Roller blading, braais on street corners, downhill skateboarding, bikes, treehouses. Every kid was on a mission.
What I didnt understand until recently, was that it was the community themselves keeping it safe, living fear free, without even realizing. Slowly this diminished. After a few criminal occurrences. As more and more believed that safer, was indoors. Locking themselves in there own prison. As if they sitting and waiting for it to happen. Allowing an opening.

Strong communities, stronger society, understanding, trust, morality?

Who knows…

I know what you mean though. I’ve read the article again and to be honest it’s not nearly as sensational as it could have been. Yes, it mentions “crazy-eyes” and an “apparent statanic ritual”, but the writer is reporting what people said. And in the wake of such an event people won’t have had the time to sit down and analyse the events. The councillor, to whom most of those remarks are attributed, had spoken to the children at the school.

While teenagers generally think they know everything, they’d just witnessed something they only usually see laid on by Hollywood. Of course people will jump the conclusions that it was satanism/music/internet.

The writer simply reported those comments, did not dress them up as final official fact.

The case will go to court and the M&G, along with many other publications will cover the outcome. How they cover it, however, is pretty much their call. But when a kid has attacked a bunch of people with a sword you can be sure they won’t give it the same angle as a weather report.

It was a sensational crime, and the way it is covered will probably be the same.

If you go back to your news editor and tell them that there was no official comment, so let’s just run with “incident, date, place, casualties” you’ll get sworn at and kicked back out there faster than you can say “hold the presses”.

You’re expected the get the story regardless, and some newspapers want more sensationalism than others. When you go to work at a newspaper you know what they expect of you. And when your readers buy that paper they know what to expect of you as well.

The “M&G” runs more comment pieces than other papers. It’s readers are looking for stories to be colourful, dissected and expounded upon, rather than just straight news.

And the sensational comments were all attributed to people – not just the journo getting creative. Obviously, as a journalist you pick and choose which quotes you want to include, that’s all about working your angle. But ultimately the editor is going to give the readers what they want. If the journo has been too over-the-top for the liking of those who sit at the big desks their story will be cut.

Let’s just wait and see how “You” handles this one, or the “Daily Voice”…

It’s a sad story. And obviously there are reasons, but knowing those reasons won’t make it not have happened. They may not even make it easier to deal with.

But (maybe this is because I’m a journo), one of the first questions I ask when I hear a story like that is “why?”. No one just goes “oh” and carries on with life, we want to know what caused it. How was it allowed to happen? How can we stop this happening in our own school? To our own kids?

Because in the old days it seemed that, yes, occasionally some kid would go nuts and mow his family down with a chainsaw, but that was somewhere out there in the big wide world. It’s a different story when the sword-weilding kid wears the same uniform as your child.

The sad thing is that instead of really digging, people are too quick to blame the “easy” things. Internet, games, music etc. Because that’s easier. Because that confirms our suspicions we’ve had all along – that those things are evil.

And that there was nothing we as his friends, family or teachers could have really done to stop it. I mean obviously if the music he listens to caused it, then there really wasn’t some other deep emotional reason that we, as the people who are close to him, should have picked up on.

And then we can tut a few times, turn the page to read the comics and eat the rest of our soggy cornflakes.