Stabbed in the hand or head? Not sure? Check out local media coverage to be even more confused.

You are walking down the hallway to your third period class and, seemingly out of nowhere, a mob begins to materialize directly in front of the stairwell. You veer to the right, hoping to avoid the chaos, but instead get trapped in the middle of the herd. Isn’t the mob mentality great? You are pushed and shoved as you struggle through the students.

Just as you consider turning around and going back the way you came, the noise begins to subside and the onlookers disperse. You come through on the other side of the crowd and check yourself for any missing items or major injuries. Once you are satisfied that all is well in your world, you move on. There is nothing left to see and nothing left to hear.

You get to your next class (which just happens to be newspaper) and the conversation in the room is all centered around one topic: “did you hear about the stabbing?” Well that is a bit of a surprise. Fear begins to spread. Students all over the campus have pulled out their phones and are texting friends and parents.  Pictures are flying up on Facebook. Rumors have already sparked and none of the stories seem to match up. No one checks their facts or cites a credible source. No one stops to think “Is what I’m saying actually the truth?”

A similar occurrence took place in September of 2004 at Clear Creek High School. The school was unexpectedly put on lockdown. Libby Sanders, a reporter for the Clear Creek HiLife in 2004, published an editorial later that month commenting on the reactions of the student body and administration.

“In a class discussion several days later,” Sanders wrote, “students recall hearing rumors of pipe bombs in the cafeteria, drug busts, hostages being held in the bus barn, a rampage at the ninth grade center, a shoot out at the football field...As news of the situation diffuses over a larger area, the stories get farther and farther from the truth, and a few miles can add a million fears.” 

Many people would expect this kind of behavior from high school students. The desire for recognition is easily satisfied through the release of interesting tidbits of information, many times embellished, with the purpose of catching the attention of the people around them. Partly because of this, teens carry a social stigma that says the teenage world is full of drama and theatrics. Everything is a crisis. What people sometimes fail to see, however, are the similarities between the world created by the high school students and the world created by the portals through which most people get their information: the media.

As of September 22, if you type “Clear Creek High School stabbing” into the Google search engine, the first sources listed will be ABC 13, KHOU, The Houston Chronicle, KWTX, Click2Houston.com, and the Bay Area News. Not even an hour after the incident, these stations began releasing stories about the stabbing.

“Authorities said an 18-year-old student accidentally cut a 16-year-old boy in the neck with scissors. Officials said the teens know each other and it was not the result of a fight....the student with the scissors was questioned by officers.” - Click2Houston

“The 16-year-old victim was passing an 18-year-old student in the hallway when one of  the students apparently made a derogatory comment about a mutual friend, Scott said...The 18-year-old is now in the custody of Galveston County Sheriff’s liaison officers, Scott said.” -yourhoustonnews.com

“An 18-year-old student at Clear Creek High School is accused of stabbing a classmate in the neck with scissors this morning, according to district officials...The two students apparently got into a fight.” - Houston Chronicle

“One student stabbed the other in the hand with a pair of scissors and then ran from the school...the student who was stabbed is being checked out at the school nurse’s office.” – KTRK-TV/DT

“At some point during the fight, officials said the elder student stabbed the 16-year-old in the neck and shoulder with a pair of scissors. The younger teen was taken to Clear Lake Regional Hospital.” - KHOU

The discrepancies were glaringly obvious and most were void of any cited sources other than the general “school officials.” It was unclear whether the incident was an accident or an act of violence, whether the victim was in the nurse’s office or the hospital, and what consequences, if any, the stabber would face.

According to a 2011 study done by the Pew Research Center, “25 percent [of people] say that in general, news organizations get the facts straight while 66% say stories are often inaccurate.”

The shifting precedence in the media are perpetuating the problem of inaccurate reporting. The easy access to mass media that so much of the public enjoys today has led to the growth of sensationalism and the decline in the quality of many of the resources we use to obtain information.