Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Some of the Best Southern Food Blogs

If you enjoy cooking, Southern Style, one of these blogs/sites will surely meet your needs, expectations, with recipes you're sure to enjoy.....Happy Cooking!!

With 50 states and over 200 years of cooking under its belt, the United States of America is just as subject to regional cooking as any other nation. One of the most noted and recognizable areas of American remains the South. With states from Texas to Florida, the ideas and practices of Southern food are as complex as they are vast.

In order to make sense of it all, we have gathered the 50 best Southern food blogs. With everyone from professional chefs to plain old mom weighing in, you are sure to find a new family favorite or just something to make for dinner tonight.

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Woman

The First Ladies of Southern cooking have loads to share on their blogs.

Pioneer Woman Cooks

2. Paula Deen : She is the popular chef sporting down home eats on the Food Network. Get Paula’s very own recipes for everything from appetizers to kid friendly recipes. You can get a menu for the week, check out the audio blog, and much more on the massive site.

3. Biscuits and Such : Elena actually bases her Southern food blog out of Baltimore. She writes her own recipes as a mix of traditional and modern cooking. Entries such as a habanero grouper and bacon blue cheese burgers will get you interested.

4. Deep South Dish : This blog is about basic, country style Southern cooking with an emphasis on coastal South dishes and cooking from scratch. This mother has literally been dishing it out since the seventies and shares here. Summer favorites from fire ‘n ice pickles and boiled peanuts are featured.

5. Homesick Texan : Lisa left her home state of Texas to move to the Big City. As stated in the name of the blog, she dedicates her writings to the food she left behind. Favorites include biscuits, carnitas, chicken-fried steak, and more.

6. Southern Lady Cooks : This blogger believes that Southern cooking is a labor of love and shares timeless favorites such as buttermilk biscuits. Cooking tips, featured recipes, and delicious looking pictures greet everyone who visits. She even features the “Ten Commandments of Grits”for true Southerners.

7. Y’all Come On! : With a name like that, the blog has to be good. Christy Clark is a misplaced Southern belle who moved to Florida. She brought her cooking with her and shares loads of it here.

8. Backyard Southern Gourmet : Armadillo Pepper is a virtual blogger in the world of Southern food. Listen to the latest audio entry or even get entries on how to make food overseas with a Southern flare. Simple and easy recipes are often the topic of each post.

9. Fabulous Southern Foodie : Ann Margaret is from Georgia where she enjoys the best of Southern food. She often features pre-prepared meals as well as her own. The blog also stands out for those looking to lose weight.

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Man

The men weigh in via blog on their Southern cooking favorites.

New Orleans Cuisine

11. Sugar Pies Food : Buck is originally from South Carolina and now lives in Tucson. His mother was a Southern cook and continues the tradition in the blog. A good choice if desserts are your thing.

12. Blackened Out : Peter and Rene believe New Orleans is one of the staple cities of America. Check out the latest happenings in food in the area with a visit. The top 20 post Katrina offerings are often shared.

13. Hushpuppy Nation : Rick McDaniel is a food historian, chef, and writer who specializes in Southern food. He devotes his blog to the history and culture of Southern food. A while can pass between posts but if entries such as lemon sherbet and beaten biscuits intrigue you, be sure to visit.

14. Slim Pickins Pork : Andrew explores the nuances of the pig in this blog. He hopes to elevate rustic cuisine to a high art. Burgers were the topic of a recent entry.

15. Chef Rick’s Southern Cooking : Click here to get loads of Southern recipes. Rick keeps this as more of a database than blog but offers loads of entries on appetizers, drinks, and pickles. Be sure not to miss the part on soul food.

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Site

These sites devote part or all of their blogs to Southern cooking.

Southern Plate

17. Eating My Words : The secret food adventures of the staff at “Southern Living”magazine are featured here. Categories include the test kitchen, restaurants, and even wine. You can also get loads of other tools and resources for food and other ways to live a Southern life.

18. Southern Food : About.com is a site where many experts stop by to blog and Southern food is not excluded. Diana Tattray has been blogging on the topic since 1997 and offers many entries. Must reads include crockpot recipes, mac and cheese, and easy chicken.

19. Southern USA : Many culinary classics of the American South are shared on Allrecipes.com. Favorites include fried chicken, biscuits, and sweet potato pie. Visit to check out the featured cook or even share your own recipe.

20. Southern Recipes : Ol’ South Recipes has a list for authentic recipes. Current entries include fried green tomatoes. You can also get entries that use avocado, chili, omelets, and much more.

21. Easy Southern Cooking : Quick recipes for the beginner are the focus here. Choose from soup, sides, beverages, and much more. You can even learn to make complex foods the easy way such as jelly, jam, and preserves.

22. Mama’s Southern Cooking Blog : If mom was a big part of your Southern cooking experience, this is the blog for you. It features recipes commonly associated with parents of Southerners. Favorites such as casseroles and potato salad are all here.

23. Southern : More of a database than a blog, this is a must visit. The Food Network has over two thousand recipes listed as Southern. Current top entries include a Southern shrimp boil, deviled eggs, and fried chicken.

24. Southern Foodways Alliance : This organizations documents, studies, and celebrates the culture of Southern cooking. The blog lets you know what they are up to, as well as shares award winning recipes. With entries dating back to 2003, make time for this one.

Best Barbeque Southern Food Blogs

Because loads of Southern food is cooked outdoors, check out these blogs.

Boy Meets Grill

26. BBQ Hub : The world of barbeque is featured on this popular blog. Choose from topics such as contests, restaurants, teams, and more. They even did a recent entry on fried chicken.

27. Barbeques & Grilling : Derrick Riches writes all about these topics in another entry from About.com. Must reads include the best gas grills and recipe of the week. One of the latest entries was on the top ten accessories for the grill.

28. Livefire : The Beringer Great Steak Challenge is the topic of concern currently on this blog. However, you can get tips and pictures on how to pit BBQ or even make lobster on the grill. Be sure not to miss the Friday Food Faves with more.

29. Patio Daddio BBQ : Musings on barbeque, cooking, and life are served here. Popular recipes here include seasoning and classic drumsticks. You can even get random recipes on items such as Hungarian entries and rattlesnake tails.

30. BBQ Blog : Brian Pearcy has published over 750 articles on the topic and has won awards for his spice rub. Learn more by visiting. He recently posted the results of a reader poll on smokers.

31. Ribs Within : This is the blog of an actual and professional BBQ team. See where they are traveling, what contest they are entering, and most of all, what they are making. There is also a special section for recipes.

32. White Trash BBQ : Stop here for real pit barbeque straight from New York City. He actually competes in the KCBS Championship and shares more here. Contest and grilling tips are often shared.

33. BBQ Addicts : Visit for the home of “America’s Hottest Barbeque Recipe.” Featured on Good Morning American and CNN, they get around. A recent entry was on the best of bacon.

34. A BBQ Nation : Get the official blog of Smoke in ‘Da Eye here. One of their most recent entries was on how to barbeque a breakfast. Specifically, it was a waffle cheese burger.

35. BBQ Sauce Reviews : Need something to go with all that food? Then stop here to get reviews for BBQ sauce before you buy. Choose from one to five star sauces and even get random entries for fruit or gluten free sauce.

Best Cajun Southern Food Blogs

Because the French also influenced Southern food, have a look at these blogs.

Real Cajun Cooking

37. New Orleans Food and Recipe News : The site NOLA.com hosts this blog. Food and recipes are shared as well as the latest dining news. Food related happenings around the city are also shared.

38. The Bear Growls : Arthur “The Bear”shares dining habits, rants, and diatribes. The world of Southern Louisiana is focused on but he can occasionally wander. The interesting back story of a restaurant he recently visited is also shared.

39. Roux B Doo’s Cajun and Creole Food Blog : Learn the difference between the two in this blog. Tim often features the best in Southern food and offers links to favorite restaurants and more. He also has the option to download recipe books.

40. NOLA Cuisine : The food of New Orleans, Louisiana is celebrated here. Get the most popular entries such as shrimp etouffee and creole with a click. They also have reviews for restaurants in the area.

41. The Boudin Link : Learn more about the Cajun style of sausage here. Get a virtual guide to it by visiting here. Maps to recommendations, recipes, and more are detailed.

42. Peanut Butter Etouffee : This recipe and other oddities are featured on the blog. Art projects and more off topic picks are also shared. You can even learn how to make steam driven cookies with a visit.

43. The Creole and Cajun Recipe Page : This is a good first stop for newbies to Cajun cooking. Chuck Taggart is a native from New Orleans and shares the basics and beyond of this type of Southern food. Appetizers, Po-Boys, and many others are shared.

44. Gumbo and Other Tales : Sara has not been active in posting lately but is still worth a look. With two blogs to choose from, she has loads about gumbo. See where she has been and what was cooked on the blog.

Best Specialty Southern Food Blogs

These food blogs have a Southern specialty in mind.

Southern Savers

46. Mommy’s Kitchen : This mother knows that the best childhood memories often take place in the kitchen. With that and Southern food in mind, she blogs a virtual kitchen of recipes and tips. The current feature is cake mix dinner rolls.

47. Soul Fusion Kitchen : Sylvie believes the kitchen is the hub of all social events in the home. Holiday parties, outdoor BBQ, luncheons, dinner, and brunch with a soulful look are featured here. A recent post was on a BBQ competition.

48. Madame Monaco’s Moreish Menus and Morsels : What does a French Canadian know about Southern food? Visit her blog to find out. Although recipes reach across both countries, she still features a few recipes from her native South. Cooking tags are on everything from African to vegetables.

49. Soul Food and Southern Cooking : Visit here to get the soul in the South. Loads of recipes are available with a click and are for everyone from the meat lover to the diabetic. They also offer cooking tips.

50. The Chicken Fried Blog : A Southern favorite, the blog makes no apologies for being about its favorite dish. Get reviews for fried chicken from all over the country. Entries are sparse but worth it if you love fried chicken as much as they do.

No matter your cooking knowledge, skill, or even location, there is loads to learn in the above 50 best Southern food blogs. With growing interest and no signs of slowing, there is a reason it is so popular.

Posted via email from Grillin and Smokin

Some of the Best Southern Food Blogs

If you enjoy cooking, Southern Style, one of these blogs/sites will surely meet your needs, expectations, with recipes you're sure to enjoy.....Happy Cooking!!

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Woman

The First Ladies of Southern cooking have loads to share on their blogs.

Pioneer Woman Cooks

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Man

The men weigh in via blog on their Southern cooking favorites.

New Orleans Cuisine

14. Slim Pickins Pork : Andrew explores the nuances of the pig in this blog. He hopes to elevate rustic cuisine to a high art. Burgers were the topic of a recent entry.

Best Southern Food Blogs by a Site

These sites devote part or all of their blogs to Southern cooking.

Southern Plate

Best Barbeque Southern Food Blogs

Because loads of Southern food is cooked outdoors, check out these blogs.

Boy Meets Grill

26. BBQ Hub : The world of barbeque is featured on this popular blog. Choose from topics such as contests, restaurants, teams, and more. They even did a recent entry on fried chicken.

30. BBQ Blog : Brian Pearcy has published over 750 articles on the topic and has won awards for his spice rub. Learn more by visiting. He recently posted the results of a reader poll on smokers.

32. White Trash BBQ : Stop here for real pit barbeque straight from New York City. He actually competes in the KCBS Championship and shares more here. Contest and grilling tips are often shared.

33. BBQ Addicts : Visit for the home of “America’s Hottest Barbeque Recipe.” Featured on Good Morning American and CNN, they get around. A recent entry was on the best of bacon.

34. A BBQ Nation : Get the official blog of Smoke in ‘Da Eye here. One of their most recent entries was on how to barbeque a breakfast. Specifically, it was a waffle cheese burger.

Best Cajun Southern Food Blogs

Because the French also influenced Southern food, have a look at these blogs.

Real Cajun Cooking

37. New Orleans Food and Recipe News : The site NOLA.com hosts this blog. Food and recipes are shared as well as the latest dining news. Food related happenings around the city are also shared.

41. The Boudin Link : Learn more about the Cajun style of sausage here. Get a virtual guide to it by visiting here. Maps to recommendations, recipes, and more are detailed.

Best Specialty Southern Food Blogs

These food blogs have a Southern specialty in mind.

Southern Savers

Posted via email from Kleerstreem's Posterous

Monday, July 30, 2012

Make Your Own Taco Seasoning

Recipe

2tsp chili powder
1tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp cumin
2tsp parsley flakes
1tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp oregano

Note: Add Salt and Pepper Flakes to Taste

Combine all ingredients.

Note: This equals enough seasoning for use with 1 pound of hamburger meat.

Posted via email from Grillin and Smokin

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Iceland Quest for Financial Freedom from Rothschild/Rockefeller

Pictured below Phillipe de Rothschild --- an epitome of evil deceit and scheming for the love of money!!

Since the 1900′s the vast majority of the American population has dreamed about saying “NO” to the Unconstitutional, corrupt, Rothschild/Rockefeller banking criminals, but no one has dared to do so.

Why?

If just half of our Nation, and the “1%”, who pay the majority of the taxes, just said NO MORE! Our Gov’t would literally change over night. Why is it so hard, for some people to understand, that by simply NOT giving your money, to large Corporations, who then send jobs, Intellectual Property, etc. offshore and promote anti-Constitutional rights…

You will accomplish more, than if you used violence. In other words… RESEARCH WHERE YOU ARE SENDING EVERY SINGLE PENNY!!!

Is that so hard?

The truth of the matter is… No one, except the Icelanders, have to been the only culture on the planet to carry out this successfully. Not only have they been successful, at overthrowing the corrupt Gov’t, they’ve drafted a Constitution, that will stop this from happening ever again.

That’s not the best part… The best part, is that they have arrested ALL Rothschild/Rockefeller banking puppets, responsible for the Country’s economic Chaos and meltdown.

Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction.

It has been a revolution without weapons in Iceland, the country that hosts the world’s oldest democracy (since 930), and whose citizens have managed to effect change by going on demonstrations and banging pots and pans. Why have the rest of the Western countries not even heard about it?

Pressure from Icelandic citizens’ has managed not only to bring down a government, but also begin the drafting of a new constitution (in process) and is seeking to put in jail those bankers responsible for the financial crisis in the country. As the saying goes, if you ask for things politely it is much easier to get them.

This quiet revolutionary process has its origins in 2008 when the Icelandic government decided to nationalise the three largest banks, Landsbanki, Kaupthing and Glitnir, whose clients were mainly British, and North and South American.

After the State took over, the official currency (krona) plummeted and the stock market suspended its activity after a 76% collapse. Iceland was becoming bankrupt and to save the situation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) injected U.S. $ 2,100 million and the Nordic countries helped withanother 2,500 million.

Great little victories of ordinary people

While banks and local and foreign authorities were desperately seeking economic solutions, the Icelandic people took to the streets and their persistent daily demonstrations outside parliament in Reykjavik prompted the resignation of the conservative Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde and his entire government.

Citizens demanded, in addition, to convene early elections, and they succeeded. In April a coalition government was elected, formed by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement, headed by a new Prime Minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.

Throughout 2009 the Icelandic economy continued to be in a precarious situation (at the end of the year the GDP had dropped by 7%) but, despite this, the Parliament proposed to repay the debt to Britain and the Netherlands with a payment of 3,500 million Euros, a sum to be paid every month by Icelandic families for 15 years at 5.5% interest.

The move sparked anger again in the Icelanders, who returned to the streets demanding that, at least, that decision was put to a referendum. Another big small victory for the street protests: in March 2010 that vote was held and an overwhelming 93% of the population refused to repay the debt, at least with those conditions.

This forced the creditors to rethink the deal and improve it, offering 3% interest and payment over 37 years. Not even that was enough. The current president, on seeing that Parliament approved the agreement by a narrow margin, decided last month not to approve it and to call on the Icelandic people to vote in a referendum so that they would have the last word.

The bankers are fleeing in fear

Returning to the tense situation in 2010, while the Icelanders were refusing to pay a debt incurred by financial sharks without consultation, the coalition government had launched an investigation to determine legal responsibilities for the fatal economic crisis and had already arrested several bankers and top executives closely linked to high risk operations.

Interpol, meanwhile, had issued an international arrest warrant against Sigurdur Einarsson, former president of one of the banks. This situation led scared bankers and executives to leave the country en masse.

In this context of crisis, an assembly was elected to draft a new constitution that would reflect the lessons learned and replace the current one, inspired by the Danish constitution.

To do this, instead of calling experts and politicians, Iceland decided to appeal directly to the people, after all they have sovereign power over the law. More than 500 Icelanders presented themselves as candidates to participate in this exercise in direct democracy and write a new constitution. 25 of them, without party affiliations, including lawyers, students, journalists, farmers and trade union representatives were elected.

Among other developments, this constitution will call for the protection, like no other, of freedom of information and expression in the so-called Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, in a bill that aims to make the country a safe haven for investigative journalism and freedom of information, where sources, journalists and Internet providers that host news reporting are protected.

The people, for once, will decide the future of the country while bankers and politicians witness the transformation of a nation from the sidelines.

Bilderberg's Global Connections

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Ethical Problems of Mass Murder Coverage In The Mass Media

This is a very detailed and informative read concerning mass murders by mass media from 1984-1993. It's long, so please save it to read when you have time as well as time to absorb all the items in this article.

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[This appeared in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 9:1 [Winter 1993-94]. It also won First Place, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Ethics Prize, 1993, Undergraduate Division. (I had to take media ethics class to meet a general education requirement while an undergraduate -- and the prize money paid my tuition that semester!) I have made a couple of minor arithmetic corrections in Table 1 that do not affect the conclusions of the paper.]

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ABSTRACT: Analyzes news coverage of mass murders in Time and Newsweek for the period 1984-91 for evidence of disproportionate, perhaps politically motivated coverage of certain categories of mass murder. Discusses ethical problems related to news and entertainment attention to mass murder, and suggests methods of enhancing the public's understanding of the nature of murder.[1]

On January 17, 1989, a homosexual prostitute and drug addict with a long history of criminal offenses and mental disturbance, Patrick Purdy, drove up to Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California. He firebombed his car, entered a playground during recess carrying a Chinese-made AKS (a semiautomatic version of the full automatic AK-47), shot to death five children, wounded 29 other children and a teacher, then shot himself in the head with a 9mm handgun.

Initial coverage of Purdy's crime was relatively restrained, and only the essential details were reported. Time gave Purdy only part of a page in the first issue after the crime ("Slaughter in a School Yard", 1989). Newsweek gave a single page to "Death on the Playground," and pointed to four prior attacks on school children, starting with Laurie Dann. Purdy's photograph was included in the Newsweek article. Newsweek's article (Baker, Joseph, and Cerio, 1989) quoted one of the authors of a book on mass murder: "There's a copycat element that cannot be denied."

But a week later, Patrick Purdy's name continued to receive press attention, and consequently his fame increased. The front cover of Time showed an AK-47 and an AR-15 crossed, beneath an outline of the U.S., stylized into a jawless skull, entitled, "Armed America." Inside, George Church's "The Other Arms Race," (1989) which occupied slightly more than 6½ pages, opened with Patrick Purdy's name. Articles referencing Purdy or his crime continued to appear in both Newsweek or Time for many months.

On September 14, 1989, Joseph Wesbecker, a disabled employee of Standard Gravure Co. in Kentucky, entered the printing plant carrying an AKS and a 9mm handgun. How profoundly similar Wesbecker's actions were to Purdy's was shortly detailed by UPI wire service stories, such as William H. Inman's "Wesbecker's rampage is boon to gun dealers" (1989a):

When Joseph Wesbecker, a mental patient, read about the destructive power of Patrick Purdy's weapon in a Stockdale[sic], Calif., schoolyard massacre in January, Wesbecker knew he'd have to have the gun.

So he bought an AK-47, a Chinese-made assault rifle firing 7.62mm rounds capable of blowing holes in concrete walls. He used a picture to describe the gun to a local dealer, who ordered it through the mail.

Wesbecker, police say, was already planned a massacre of his own -- one which killed eight Thursday and wounded 13. He used an AK-47 on all victims but himself. He committed suicide with a pistol.

In the same way Wesbecker's interest was peaked[sic] -- he had clipped out a February Time magazine article on some of Purdy's exploits -- gun dealers expect a renewed blaze of interest in the big gun.

"With all the media attention since then," said Ray Yeager, owner of Ray's Gun Shop in Louisville, "and all the anti-gunners's attempts to ban (assault rifles), the result has been massive sales." [2]

How important was the news coverage of Purdy's crime in influencing Wesbecker's actions, above and beyond identifying the weapon of choice for such an act of savagery? Police now believe Wesbecker had begun plotting the suicide rampage for at least seven months. Searching Wesbecker's house, police found a copy of a Feb. 6 Time magazine detailing mass murders in California, Oklahoma, Texas and elsewhere. A headline underlined by Wesbecker read

"Calendar of Senseless Shootings."

The major gun purchases were made between February and May.

Initially police thought Wesbecker was an ardent gun handler or paramilitary buff, but evidence indicates his interest in guns was relatively young.

"We have no information indicating he had a collection of guns, or was even interested in them before last year," said Lt. Jeff Moody, homicide investigator. "As far as we know he had no formal training in weapon use." (Inman, 1989b)

This disturbing information about the connection between the Time article and Wesbecker's actions didn't make it into Time, Newsweek, or many newspapers' coverage of this tragedy. The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Santa Rosa (Cal.) Press-Democrat, all left this embarrassing detail � at least embarrassing to Time � out of their coverage. It wasn't a lack of space that was responsible for this omission, for this was a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times and the Press-Democrat.

Nor was it that no one in the media saw a connection between Wesbecker's reading material and the crime. The Los Angeles Times, the Press-Democrat, and the New York Times all suggested a connection between Wesbecker's actions and Soldier of Fortune magazine. Wesbecker had taken to readingSoldier of Fortune, but none of the articles indicate that Soldier of Fortune had been found in such an incriminating position as the Time article (Harrison, 1989). Apparently, Soldier of Fortune's mere presence in Wesbecker's home was an important piece of news, while the marked-up copy of Time, left open, wasn't important enough to merit coverage. Of the four newspapers examined for coverage, only the San Francisco Chronicle included the disturbing connection between Time's coverage and the crime:

At Wesbecker's home, police found manuals on weapons and a February 6 issue of Time magazine devoted to mass killers, including Robert Sherrill, who slaughtered 14 people in an Oklahoma post office three years ago, and Patrick Purdy, who killed five children with an AK-47 assault rifle in Stockton, Calif., in January. An AK-47 was the main weapon used by Wesbecker. ("Kentucky Killer's Weird Collection", 1989) Clearly, Joseph Wesbecker was not a healthy, well-adjusted person driven to commit his crime simply because of the sensational news coverage. To argue this would take away Joseph Wesbecker's personal responsibility for his actions. As tempting as it might be to hold Time responsible for having indirectly caused this horrible crime, this temptation must be resisted. The editors of Time might have forseen the possibility of their coverage promoting "copycat" crimes, but to use this as a principle of law would make it impossible to ever write a factual account of a serious crime, without fear of being hauled into a court to answer for the actions of a deranged reader. Indeed, even this discussion of the ethical problems could be considered inflammatory, by such a standard.

But even absent a notion of legal responsibility, there should be a notion of moral responsibility, and awareness of a causal relationship should provoke concern among journalists. Joseph Wesbecker, without question, was headed towards some sort of unpleasant ending to his life. But in the absence of the February 6th coverage by Time, would he have chosen this particular method of getting attention? Wesbecker was under psychiatric care at the time, and had already made three suicide attempts (Inman, 1989b). Did Time's sensational coverage, transforming the short unhappy life of Patrick Purdy from obscurity to permanent notoriety, encourage Wesbecker to transform the end of his life from, at most, a local news story of a suicide, into a story that was carried from coast to coast?

Newsweek and especially Time, perhaps for reasons of circulation, perhaps for political reasons, have engaged in ethically questionable practices in recent years in their coverage of mass murder in the United States. These practices were unquestionably a major cause of the murder of seven people in 1989, and may have played a role in the murders of others in recent years. The actions they took provide a concrete example of a problem in media ethics that is at least two centuries old: how much coverage should the press give to violent crime?

There are three related ethical problems that will be addressed in this paper:

1. The level of coverage given by Time and Newsweek (and perhaps, by the other news media) to certain great crimes appears to encourage unbalanced people, seeking a lasting fame, to copy these crimes � as we will see indisputably happened in Joseph Wesbecker's 1989 homicidal rampage.

2. Analysis of the quantity of press coverage given to mass murder suggests that political motivations may have caused Newsweek and especially Time to give undue attention to a particular type of mass murder, ultimately to the detriment of public safety.

3. The coverage given to murder by Newsweek and Time gives the electorate a very distorted notion of the nature of murder in the United States, almost certainly in the interests of promoting a particular political agenda.

Fame and infamy are in an ethical sense, opposites. Functionally, they are nearly identical. Imagine an alien civilization that does not share our notions of good and evil, studying the expanding shell of television signals emanating from our planet. To such extraterrestials, Winston Churchill and Adolph Hitler are both "famous"; without an ability to appreciate the vituperation our civilization uses to describe Hitler, they might conclude that both were "great men." Indeed, they might assume that Hitler was the "greater" of the two, because there has certainly been more broadcast about Hitler than about Churchill. The human need to celebrate human nobility, and to denounce human depravity, has caused us to devote tremendous attention, both scholarly and popular, to portraying the polar opposites of good and evil.

The pursuit of fame can lead people to acts of great courage and nobility. It can also lead to acts of great savagery. The Italian immigrant Simon Rodia, builder of Los Angeles' Watts Towers, once explained that his artistic effort was the result of an ordinary person's desire for fame, because, "A man has to be good-good or bad-bad to be remembered." ("Simon Rodia, 90, Tower Builder", 1965) But for most people, fame isn't as easy as building towers of steel, concrete, and pottery. Unfortunately, being "bad-bad" is easier than being "good-good" � as history amply demonstrates.

In 356 BC, an otherwise unremarkable Greek named Herostratus burned the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in an effort to immortalize his name. That we remember the name of this arsonist, the destroyer of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, shows that great crimes can achieve lasting fame (Bengston, 1968, p. 305; De Camp, 1963, p. 91; Coleman-North, 1963, 10:414). [3] Fisher Ames, a Massachusetts Federalist who sat in the House of Representatives from 1789 to 1800, expressed his concerns about this very subject in the October, 1801 issue of the Palladium:

Some of the shocking articles in the papers raise simple, and very simple, wonder; some terror; and some horror and disgust. Now what instruction is there in these endless wonders? Who is the wiser or happier for reading the accounts of them? On the contrary, do they not shock tender minds, and addle shallow brains? They make a thousand old maids, and eight or ten thousand booby boys, afraid to go to bed alone. Worse than this happens; for some eccentric minds are turned to mischief by such accounts as they receive of troops of incendiaries burning our cities; the spirit of imitation is contagious; and boys are found unaccountably bent to do as men do...

Every horrid story in a newspaper produces a shock; but, after some time, this shock lessens. At length, such stories are so far from giving pain, that they rather raise curiosity, and we desire nothing so much as the particulars of terrible tragedies (Allen, 1983, pp. 14-15).

The problem that concerned Rep. Ames remains with us today � as the two 1989 mass murders discussed above, linked by this "spirit of imitation," demonstrate.

Mass murder isn't new to America (or anywhere else) ¾ nor is the popular horror and interest in such crimes. Consider the following children's doggerel about the 1892 murders in Fall River, Massachusetts ("Borden, Lizzie Andrew", 1963, 4:266):

Lizzie Borden took an ax
and gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
she gave her father forty-one.As a child growing up in the 1960s, I remember vividly the horror at, but also widespread coverage of, the crimes of Richard Speck, Charles Manson & friends, and the Zodiac killer. In the mid-1960s, when I must have been old enough to have seen newspaper coverage of it (though it made no conscious impression on me), Charles Whitman engaged in a murderous rampage from a university tower in Texas, killing 16 people with a rifle.

In the 1980s, there were a number of mass murders in the United States, and yet the quantity of press coverage for these crimes varied widely. All other things being equal, when mass murder is committed in this country, we should expect the coverage to be generally proportionate to the number of victims. How do we measure the quantity of press coverage for a major crime? The more remote a newspaper is from a crime, the less extensive the coverage we should expect. As a result, it would not be a meaningful measure of the quantity of press coverage to examine any sort of local or even regional newspaper coverage; the coverage of a West Coast crime in California newspapers will doubtless be far greater than coverage of a similar crime that took place on the East Coast. A more meaningful measurement is the press coverage given by the national news magazines, such as Time andNewsweek.

An analysis of articles in Time and Newsweek, America's mass circulation news magazines, shows some interesting characteristics of how mass murder in America is covered. For the purposes of this paper, any article which mentioned a mass murderer, even by referring to his specific criminal act, was considered to be "fame" in the sense we defined earlier in this paper. Even if the article was primarily about some related subject, if the mass murderer was mentioned, the entire article was considered as adding to that killer's fame.

Why the entire article? Because a potential mass murderer will consider any future article that mentions him to be "publicity." Wesbecker demonstrated this by leaving open in his room the February 6th Time article. Although the article was primarily about gun control and mass murder, it included Purdy's name and crime as part of the introduction.

Attempting to locate articles that refer to these mass murderers is difficult, because many of these articles are not locatable by keyword search. In the case of mass murderers who used guns, I looked through all the articles during the period 1984-1991 that were about gun control or mass murder, and I included only those that referenced the murderers or their crimes. For arson murders, I looked up articles about arson and fire hazards. Articles purely about gun control or fire hazards that failed to mention these mass murderers by name or action, were not included in the analysis. For mass murders committed with other weapons, I looked up appropriate articles about the weapon used, as well as articles about mass murder.

The criticism could be made that even a brief mention of a mass murderer's actions in a larger article will tend to exaggerate the level of coverage given to that crime. This is a valid concern, but as long as all categories of mass murder receive identical treatment, the results should be roughly equivalent. Where an article contained no mention of the mass murderer or his actions, and a sidebar article did, only the sidebar article was included in the computation of the space given.

What constitutes mass murder? This is important, because by manipulative definition of "mass murder," one can prove nearly anything about the news coverage. Clearly, there is a difference between serial murderers, and mass murderers, and a difference that makes them non-comparable from the standpoint of analyzing the news coverage. The difference is that serial murderers commit their crimes over a very long period of time, and so each murder is, by itself, a minor story. Also, because serial murderers sometimes are successful in making the remains of the victim disappear, the only news story is when that serial murderer's actions are finally noticed.

For these reasons, and for the purposes of this paper, a mass murder has two distinguishing characteristics:

1. Actions intentionally taken, with the expectation that great loss of life will result, or where any reasonable person would recognize that great loss of life will result. The component of expecting loss of life, of course, is a fundamental part of the question of whether publicity plays a role in promoting such crimes.

For this reason, I have excluded such tragedies as Larry Mahoney's drunken driving motor vehicle wreck that caused 27 deaths in May of 1988. Mahoney was convicted of manslaughter, so the essential element of premeditation was lacking, except in the sense that getting drunk and operating a motor vehicle is potentially quite dangerous ("Convicted. Larry Mahoney", 1990). However, including crimes like Mahoney's in this study would tend to strengthen my argument that Time and Newsweek give special treatment to firearms mass murderers, since Mahoney received no press in Newsweek, and only 0.15 square inches per victim in Time.

2. The actions causing the loss of life all take place within 24 hours, or the deaths are all discovered within 24 hours. This is an arbitrary period of time, of course. It could have been extended to 48 hours, or 72 hours, however, without significantly widening the bloody pool of crimes whose coverage we will study.

Most people I talk to are quite surprised to find out that there are mass murderers who kill with weapons other than guns. They are even more surprised when they find out that arson mass murder victims in the last few years have outnumbered gun mass murders. Why is this a surprise? The reason is that press coverage of non-firearms mass murders is almost non-existent. As Table 1 shows, arson mass murderers and knife mass murderers receive relatively little attention from Time and Newsweek. As should be obvious, there is a very large discrepancy between the amount of coverage given to arson mass murders, and mass murderers involving guns exclusively. [4] Almost nine times as much coverage were given to exclusive firearms mass murderers, as to arson mass murderers.

Murderer	Month/Year	Dead	Time sq. in.	Time Sq. Inches/Dead	Newsweek sq. in.	Newsweek Sq. Inches/Dead	Total Sq. Inches/Dead
James Huberty	Jul-84	22	109.63	4.98	157.50	7.16	12.14
Sylvia Seegrist	Nov-85	2	20.75	10.38	0.00	0.00	10.38
William Bryan Cruse	Apr-87	6	33.06	5.51	0.00	0.00	5.51
David Burke	Dec-87	43	52.50	1.22	57.75	1.34	2.56
Robert Dreesman	Dec-87	7	105.00	15.00	0.00	0.00	15.00
Ronald Gene Simmons	Dec-87	16	15.94	1.00	78.75	4.92	5.92
Richard Wade Farley	Feb-88	7	11.25	1.61	0.00	0.00	1.61
Laurie Wasserman Dann	May-88	2	107.63	53.81	54.00	27.00	80.81
Patrick Purdy	Jan-89	6	720.00	120.00	370.34	61.72	181.72
Joseph T. Wesbecker	Sep-89	8	19.69	2.46	52.50	6.56	9.02
James E. Pough	Jun-90	9	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
George Hennard	Oct-91	24	225.00	9.38	78.75	3.28	12.66
Firearms Murders		152	1420.44	9.34	849.59	5.59	14.93
Firearms Murders excl. Patrick Purdy		146	700.44	4.80	479.25	3.28

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