Because the shootings in a Springfield, Ore. high school a few weeks ago were a (kind of) local story, we got even more than the usual overload of sensational TV and print blood'n'guts news coverage: weeping parents, traumatized students, concerned counselors, therapists, and assorted adult experts telling us about the perils of the so-called epidemic of youth violence.

It was the perfect media frenzy story: lots of emotion, especially fear. Fear that your kid might be shot, or, worse yet, that your very own child might be one of those time bombs ticking among our city's pantheon of young predators and you don't even know it!!. Film at eleven.

Kip Kinkel's bad morning finally disappeared from the headlines after a few days, but the media, hypersensitized to a trend of its own making, keeps going: a trial in Mississippi, an arrest in Michigan, more on Jonesboro, and the latest incident at Bite of Seattle, where black teens and firecrackers became an excuse to evacuate 20,000 people and launch media mayhem speculating recklessly about gangs and gunshots.

Such tactics boost ratings and circulation but they're not neutral, politically or culturally. In fact, they're rather dangerous. They feed all sorts of repressive political trends: curfews (mercifully ruled unconstitutional in Washington state recently, an item that didn't get nearly the media glare a good shooting does); harassment of youth dances and gatherings; the criminalizing of runaways and the homeless; the ever-expanding juvenile gulag; and the de-funding of public education on the implicit assumption that it's a lost cause anyway.

Noticeably missing, always, in media discussion of these issues are the voices of youth themselves. Contrary to myth, they're usually a lot more thoughtful than adults give them credit for--often more thoughtful and informed than the adults themselves. Are youth the predatory menace we've all been led to believe, and if so, why? I spoke with a class at Seattle's NOVA High School a few weeks ago, after the Springfield shooting, and two students, Sarah Reyneveld and Katie Porch, offered to write something up. So, rather than yet another adult (me) ranting on the issue, here are Sarah and Katie:

After witnessing the media frenzy surrounding the Oregon shootings, it should be no surprise that youth crimes receive disproportionate media coverage in comparison with adult crimes. The headlines announcing the shootings, "Kids killing kids," reeked with sensationalism and shock value. The coverage seemed to be groping in the dark for answers, not the least of which: who was responsible for these atrocious crimes?

Experts fluctuate between the contradictory beliefs that a tendency towards violence is "innate" in teenagers, and that the increase in violence is a symbol of the loss of America's innocence. Despite what media reports lead people to believe about youth violence, the sheer numbers do not support the perceived epidemic of youth crime. Official (FBI) statistics show that juveniles commit only 13 percent of all violent crimes. But the average estimate of that statistic by Americans an a recent (Gallup) poll is more than three times that high, at about 43 percent.

Instead of addressing the root cause of youth violence, the media distorts and inflates reality. Nearly one third of America's children live in poverty. This shameful statistic is not an excuse but in part an explanation. Reporting on the economics and politics of poverty would do far more to reduce youth violence than giving a sensationalistic hungry populous their fill. A vast number of juveniles that commit violent crimes have suffered abuse at the hands of parents and caretakers. The Bureau of Justice reports that parents are largely the perpetrators of home violence: "six times more likely to murder their teenage children than the other way around." The media, however, has not chosen to empathize the rampant epidemic of child abuse, nor does it stigmatize the American public as a society of abusers.

The recent barrage of anti-youth reports reaffirm the feelings of antagonism and suspicion that many adults hold toward youth. The disproportionate coverage of youth violence serves to reinforce dangerous stereotypes that penetrate into all arenas of American society. The Governors' Commission on Youth Violence, for example: "Children as young as 13 are shooting other young people for bicycles or jackets, setting fire to homeless men and women, and participating in gang rapes." This statement gives the listener the impression that any random child on the street might commit any number of acts of vandalism, theft, arsonry, or worse.

The impact of these senseless stereotypes is that the vast majority of teenagers we talked with perceive that adults were more suspicious and threatened by youths. As we interviewed high school students, we were bombarded with frustrated accounts of personal violation. Students gave countless stories in which they were unjustly accused of theft, in which they were randomly subjected to searches of their backpacks or bags, and so on. Students unanimously reported being treated rudely or suspiciously by everyone from police, store managers, and clerical workers to the general public.

Why do we allow these violent images to work to segregate and alienate youth from the rest of America? It's difficult to believe in America's claim of a "youth-centered" culture when teenagers experience apprehension and antagonism for the crime of simply being themselves. The loosely constructed images we see plastered across our morning papers--the teen killers, or to the other extreme, valedictorians and athletic champions--represent a narrow and diluted picture of American youth.

Instead of wallowing in sensational accounts that fixate on satanic acts of brutality, people must be willing to look past the stigma. The rising violence among youth, where it exists, mirrors the increased trend towards violence in society at large. This form of media coverage is dangerous in that it not only fails to address the root cause of youth violence, but shadows the image of all youth. The next time you see a youth walking down the street, don't be so quick to judge. Teens are as diverse as any other age bracket; we're complex people in our own right, and deserve to be treated as individuals.