ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOX) - On Monday, seven people were shot – three died – in the Greater Ville neighborhood of St. Louis. Some news outlets called it a "mass shooting." Some did not.
Some made it a top story. Other news outlets placed it lower in coverage.
KMOX's midday show St. Louis Talks pulled Media Literacy expert and author Julie Smith into the studio to talk about how news organizations have historically covered similar stories.
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"One of the issues is there is no standard definition of what constitutes a mass shooting," explains Smith, "CBS, Time, AP will say it's a shooting that involves four or more people and not any of them necessarily need to be killed."
Smith refers to research at the University of Chicago that found that "newsworthy stories, stories that get a lot of coverage, typically break our assumptions that a place is safe, so shootings that take place in a church, school or mall, or some public place will get more coverage." She adds, "what I want to challenge you to do is think about, if this shooting had occurred in O'Fallon, Illinois or O'Fallon, Missouri at strip mall, how would the coverage be different?"
KMOX News is taking a critical look at media messages with our Media Literacy Project including our new podcast "What the Media?!!?"
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