of course, that can't be taken as an absolute. however, the tragedy at virginia tech has underscored the sensationalism of popular media.
i learn nothing, absolutely nothing, when an academic who wrote an article about columbine spouts off his opinion regarding school shootings. i also learn nothing when talking heads interview fbi agents from california regarding their opinions on how the situation should have been handled.
newsflash: the tragedy happened. your professional hindsight only serves to rub salt in open wounds, at worst. at best, you're preaching to people who have no control over campus security and sit on their couches under the impression that you, talking head, you could have stopped the massacre if only you had been in charge.
that is disingenuous and disrespectful, frankly. virginia tech's campus police are JUST that: campus police. given their training and protocol, they did the absolute best that they could, and should be commended for their quick rescue of injured victims. will the news underscore the fact that some of the students who were saved might have bled out if not for paramedic and police aid? ** addendum: and also if not for individual acts of heroism that i have yet to see in american mainstream media? ** further addendum: aforementioned individual act of heroism was perpetrated by a romanian shoah survivor. further proof that what we should have learned from the shoah is that good people cannot do nothing and expect to remain good. also phrased by panther as, "he knew what happens when good people stand by and do nothing." kiddush hashem.
whatever happened to respect in the media? smearing faces and bloody images across the screen feeds fear, and doesn't entirely serve the original purpose of the media: disseminating knowledge. if it's all about finding the right theme music [ all of it sounds ripped from jaws ] and properly shocking sound byte, then count me out.
i've got hollywood for that, thank you.
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Wow, you've hit the nail on the head. Why report the news when you can sensationalize the whole thing. Now, maybe they wanted to hold off on reporting facts but still cover the situatoin untill they had something solid. Still, you're absolutely right.
it might, *might* be a little too easy to blame the media right about now...
it isn't that i would take issue with anything chastising the media for sensationalizing news. no one reasonably can. because that's exactly what 24-hour news networks have done. but there might be a problem with limiting, or attempting to limit, the media to a role of disseminating information.
yes, the media asks questions. often, they aren't the questions i want asked. mostly, they've been limited to "what is the psychology of someone who mass-murders?" and "did vt do enough?". now, i'm not going to contend that these are (a) the right questions or (b) going to lead to a more thorough understanding of the issue. whether they're the right questions is determined by the american people voting with their remote controls and watching the network that will ask the right questions. but the latter question is predicated on the answer.
if, e.g., vt *could* have stopped the tragedy, or cut it short, this is invaluable knowledge. in fact (and facts, at this point, are still in the process of being uncovered), this kid appears to have been referred to campus counseling services prior to the tragedy. isn't it possible that he could've been helped?
not that it isn't *just* *as* *possible* that he couldn't've. which is where i have to step in to defend the media. if they don't ask these questions, then that knowledge disappears. if there is no impetus to discover it (impetus, read: for-profit news), then there is always the possibility that this could happen again.
now, my likely answer to the question is no, that this couldn't be stopped. this guy wasn't attempting a robbery or a rape, he was willing to exchange his life for what he was after. he had to know he was going to die going into this, and he went ahead anyway. so no, i sincerely doubt that any talking heads (whether they were in charge of the situation or not) could have prevented this tragedy. but that isn't to say that asking the question won't generate positive results. the tragedy *happened*. and yes, the friends and families of the vt victims need time to grieve, which i certainly feel the mainstream media has not given. but if we can ask questions that *might*, in some parallel dimension far away, lead someone to prevent something like this from happening again, i say who better than tiki barber? (yes, tiki barber, professional football player-cum-reporter, has been sent to vt (where his father played football and met his mother) to cover the tragedy.)
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