Warning: minor horn-tooting ahead.

I got the coolest email a couple days ago. (Sorry for the delay. Had my hands full.)

The Columbia Journalism Review's online site published a really great piece about how the press has generally done a great job on the Red Lake school shooting, in contrast to our grossly embarassing performance on Columbine.

It's packed with insight, so I'd like to think I'd recommend without the plug. But I'm really glad it has one. heeheehee.

It sites my Slate piece prominently, as the definitive story about Columbine.

So I couldn't resist sharing it.

It's right on the money start to finish, but the one conclusion that really bothered me was this: The press has really learned something since Columbine, but if the spotlight had been brighter on Red Lake, the press would have screwed this one up a lot worse than they did.

That analysis bothers me because it's so undeniably true. I spent a lot of time reviewing how the Columbine myths were spawned (among other things, I read every story for the first two weeks in seven or eight key papers, mapped out every citation of each of about 15 myths in a massive spreadsheet, and diagramed how each one sprouted and solidified). The pressure to find an answer--above all, to explain why--was the key driver. It drove us to take little scraps of evidence, spin them instantaneously into hypotheses, and over night bounce them round the echo chamber until we had all accepted them as fact.

The upshot of this, and the most sobering conclusion of Brian's CJR piece, is that our media performance as a whole, is inversely proportional to the importance of the event to the public at the time.

That's a sobering that.

How on earth do we change it?

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Thanks to Jeralyn at 5280 and Jesse at the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma for writing up the piece. (And me.) Both postings weave in a couple other great stories and ideas. Both are definitely worth checking out if you have any interest in this topic.

Incidentially, 5280, Denver's city magazine, and one of the first publications I worked for,  recently received two National Magazine Award nominations. Major milestone. Good luck to you guys, and to Max Potter, who wrote both stories. (If you're wondering about the title, 5280 is the supposed elevation here--exactly one mile.)