Virginia Tech Tragedy: A Revealing Sociological Tome

about 1 month ago by Nate Brugnone

The recent shootings at Virginia Tech are not only a tragedy at face-value, they are also a revealing tragedy on many social levels. As this story broke almost every headline across the US, and no doubt throughout much of the world, it's become apparent to me how much journalism today resembles a botch theatrical moral auction.

It's a "who can draw the most hits using the most visceral, emotive attractor" competition. First come the alligators of the shallow, murky riverbanks. These are the fat lizard spawn of necessary 24-hour news corporations -- the ones with catlike reflexes and the largest paychecks. They're bug-eyes keep a most sentinel vigil over "normalcy" amongst the crowd. Even the slightest ripple caused by a ubiquitous herbivore hoof could spell a ratings spike and a big payoff. And I'm not just going to roll over here and give them the credit of, "[in a whiny, airy Bob Saget voice] well, they just want to get us the news we need to know about. They're looking out for us." If that's the case, then I'm severely deluded as to the nature of mass media in the US and Rupert Murdock (or whomever) has a proportional messiah-complex. We know, at least considering the second statement, that this is untrue.

Covering the rest of Noah's Ark here, we come to the wolves in peacocks' feathers -- the journalists who find it necessary to employ visual aids, as if the headline, "33 College Students Slaughtered in Largest Killing Spree in US History," doesn't tweak tightly enough the heart muscles and gray matter of the soon-to-be-touched-upon emotional-parasites. "Here's a picture a bloodied boy barely clinging to life as he is carried out by fellow scholars." Blah blah blah... on & on.

Then in come the dumpster-diving raccoon collage artists, riding the coattails of those before, pasting, quoting other papers, quoting bloggers (dah!), in hopes of making a few more bucks. These things smell and are super lazy. Just look at the abundance of this type of roadkill for one week. Its prominence it staggering.

And the saddest of all, just our collective attention is turned furthest from the topic, we have monkeys parachuting into football stadiums with a sanctified howl of political co-opting. It used to annoy me to no end when someone called George Bush a monkey and blamed him for something he probably had no direct hand in, but after this ringmaster bit at VT I can say the man has no moral fiber of his own and is nothing more than the flaccid remnants of a fraternity kegger ... thus making him a monkey... er, something to that extent.

Now it feels like I&#39;m done here with this topic, but I can feel something; some animal has been overlooked. Ah, yes. The very foundation on which all the rest of these rely: <i>Heliactin bilopha</i>, the Horned Sungem. No bird flaps its wings faster and therefore no bird is more fickle. There are over 6 billion inhabiting the globe. Each determines which flowers shall bloom next year and the year after and so on. No single bird sees itself as the essential part of this zoo as it can freely and discriminately drink nectar from wherever it may choose...

I find it odd and also telling that year after year the same flowers come into bloom. We&#39;re interesting creatures...

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Original Source: <a href="http://dormitem.com/blog/95">http://dormitem.com/blog/95</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States</a>.

Nate Brugnone

2007-06-02

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States

eng

News Worthiness

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Since releasing the excerpts from the package sent by Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui, NBC News has received more than just a little criticism. Indeed, this story is so big that every little nuance... anything remotely connected to the story is being put under a microscope and reported on <i>ad nauseam</i>. Ironically enough, the decision to air the material delivered to NBC News has become itself a news story.

If not for the "gift" left by Cho, the media would be filling all of that airtime and every available inch with anything and everything it could discover about this "seriously disturbed individual." Cho saved the media a huge amount of legwork and opened insights about what drove him. Did he get what he wanted? Some are saying that by airing this "manifesto," Cho has ultimately won.

But think about how ridiculous that sounds. Cho is dead - and he&#39;s not getting any better. Last I checked, to get any enjoyment or satisfaction from an act, one must be alive to experience it. Furthermore, even if Cho could somehow relish his media spotlight from the grave, he would soon realize that no one agrees that he was any kind of victim. He would be crestfallen in the discovery that he is being regarded - at best - as "a seriously disturbed young man." Mostly he&#39;s being viewed as some kind of homicidal whacko.

For those with a religious leaning, I&#39;m guessing that Cho&#39;s last act earned him a one-way ticket straight to Hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Yet he is somehow enjoying the last laugh? I don&#39;t think so. Does this coverage intensify the pain of the community, the survivors and the victims&#39; families? Undoubtedly, but surely they would understand that news of this magnitude must be reported. Even without Cho&#39;s help, there would be extensive coverage of Cho - a disproportionate amount.

But even without considering the civic responsibility of the news business, let us remember that it is a business. If no one tuned into this stuff, no one would report it. People want to know, despite how much they say they don&#39;t. The numbers don&#39;t lie. Did NBC and others overdo it? Was there more coverage of Cho&#39;s package than "necessary?" That&#39;s a matter of opinion and judgment. But to say that NBC had a responsibility to quash this information is nonsense. They have a responsibility to report it.

It&#39;s a tough job, but someone&#39;s got to do it.

Posted by Mr. Althouse at 5:30 PM

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Original Source: <a href="http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/news-worthiness.html">http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/news-worthiness.html</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.

Michael Althouse

2007-06-02

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

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Dispassionate Reporting

Monday, April 16, 2007

Thirty-one... now 32 killed at Virginia Tech. Initial "breaking news" headlines emailed and forwarded to my BlackBerry from the <i>New York Times</i>, then the <i>Washington Post</i> and finally the <i>Sacramento Bee</i> reported the number dead at 20 or 21. I received these reports while sitting in a classroom at Sacramento State University - peeking at the screen of my personal digital assistant, surreptitiously answering its silent vibrations. Now, more than two hours later, I finally have occasion to open my laptop to read the full story and it&#39;s worse than I imagined.

It could have gone either way. Initial reports in instances such as this are often inaccurate. When news like this breaks, details are often sketchy; new and updated information is constantly becoming available. I was hoping that the initial reports were wrong - that the death count was too high. As we now know, it went the other way. There are many questions yet to be answered, but the resounding senselessness of it all couldn&#39;t possibly be more pronounced.

Although I haven&#39;t yet reported on a tragedy of this magnitude, I have covered other breaking news and experienced the singleness of purpose that getting the information to print as quickly as possible represents. While in the midst of the event, whether it&#39;s a fire, an accident or a shooting, getting the information out is the reporter&#39;s only job. The gravity of the event, at least for me, doesn&#39;t come into play until after I&#39;ve had a chance to decompress - after the deadlines have been met. While reporting, I simply don&#39;t have time to make any judgments about what it all means, only to report on what it is.

In this instance, I am a news consumer like most everyone else hearing about this calamity today. I am shocked, disgusted, dismayed... and distracted. If I were assigned to this story, all of those emotions would have to be put on hold - it&#39;s all about getting the story out. Like nurses, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and many other professions where a level dispassionate decorum is essential, reporters must be able to disassociate themselves from their story or risk becoming part of it. There is no time to think.

The irony of where I was when I received this terrible news is not lost on me. It could happen anywhere. It <i>did</i> happen anywhere - this time at Virginia Tech. No one is immune to this kind of idiotic violence and there is no defense. Sure the debate regarding gun control and a hundred other acts of second-guessing will shortly ensue, but at the end of the day, we can&#39;t shield ourselves from every nut-case in the great big world. Unfortunately, this sort of insanity will likely be repeated again somewhere, someday. And there will be reporters there to cover it. The moral? Perhaps there is none. Perhaps it&#39;s as simple as appreciating each day like it could be your last. For at least 31 at Virginia Tech, it was.

Posted by Mr. Althouse at 1:04 PM

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Original Source: <a href="http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/dispassionate-reporting.html">http://25yearplan.blogspot.com/2007/04/dispassionate-reporting.html</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.

Michael Althouse

2007-06-02

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

eng

Virginia Tech shootings create media ethics debate

Jeff Vrabel / GateHouse Media
Thu Apr 19, 2007, 05:01 PM CDT

BLACKSBURG, VA - Regular readers of this column - and hello to all three of you - know that, when appropriate, partially appropriate, tangentially connected or carries the very slight possibility of being funny to someone somewhere, I have no problem resorting to remarks of questionable taste. Sometimes, if I can and my editors agree, I can slip a colorful adjective in there or two. When it comes to matters of obscenity and the maintenance of high culture, a conservative prude I am not.

But something about being unable to avoid pictures of Cho Seung-Hui pointing a gun at me Thursday was more nauseatingly loathsome than I might have even expected.

People with lengthier titles and livelier paychecks than mine will by now have spent hours and days debating the judiciousness of using the pictures of a killer doing what he did when he executed more than 30 people on Monday, pointing the gun at me, at you, at himself, at whatever purported demons he&#39;d invented. He did so on purpose, doing it with the intent to enrage after his death. With astonishing clarity, Cho&#39;s package to NBC News proved, over all else, that this was not a random bout of insanity, a snap. This was as premeditated a rampage as one could enact; one wouldn&#39;t be surprised if investigators soon discover a map and a set of blueprints.

I&#39;m not here to debate the news value, and were I sitting in the newsroom at NBC News when that package came in, I - nor any of you - have any idea how I would have reacted. But it feels an awful, awful lot like serving a black-hearted killer a drink at the bar and asking if he&#39;d like to keep the bottle for free.

This is what he wanted. This is what he&#39;s getting. There wasn&#39;t much chance that anything else would happen, really.

Hopefully, at least some percentage of the country&#39;s 6 million pundits-posing-as-journalists will at least begin addressing the question of how much of the decision to run these photos was fueled by news judgment and how much was fueled by the media&#39;s increasingly desperate desire to keep up. By Tuesday, CNN had a bumper - not a segment, not a commercial, but one of those four-second clips that leads viewers into and out of ads - that flashed the phrase "CAMPUS SHOOTING" no fewer than eight times. Eight times! The font changed, got bigger, jumped around the screen, and finally settled front and center in bold type, where even if you were just flipping by or passing it at the airport, you could stop and wonder what&#39;s next. (Hilariously, the CNN outlet I was watching at the time punctuated its Cho coverage with a 90-second ad for a gun range.)

At this point, calls for judiciousness will fall on deaf ears; as the moment for pure sympathy and horror seems to have already passed - well, it is Friday - now we can get on with the ransacking of grief, the creation of logos and theme music and the mortifying - and, for the most part, unavoidable - capitulation to the wishes of a killer.

<i>Jeff Vrabel can be reached at www.jeffvrabel.com</i>

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Original Source: <a href="http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/stcharles/opinions/x1721527709">http://www.chicagosuburbannews.com/stcharles/opinions/x1721527709</a>

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5
</a>.

Jeff Vrabel

2007-05-31

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5

eng

Virginia Tech Massacre hits newstands...

Major media outlets ranging from business publications to political magazines cover the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Original source: <a href=" http://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/467183309/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/467183309/</a>

Licensed under <a href=" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 2.0</a>

Kevin Lim

2007-05-30

Chad Newswander

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Blame Game and The Ghosts of Waco

Adam Roberts / <a href="http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/">The Metropolis Times</a> (Blog)

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

<span style="font-style: italic">"There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." - Kurt Vonnegut</span>

<b>I don&#39;t really want to write this blog.</b> I wanted to just take a few days off and give condolences to the victims at Virginia Tech. But before the bodies have even been identified, the media has already started playing the blame game. Apparently, if we had banned Hollywood, Nintendo and guns, this wouldn&#39;t have happened. I feel compelled to counter their bullshit.

It makes me very angry <a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/87/story_8770_1.html" >when moralists so brazenly exploit</a> a tragedy like this. I can&#39;t do anything about the murders, I can&#39;t stop people from trivializing deaths by turning them into moral panics, but maybe if I channel my anger into blogging, I can convince at least a few readers to pause before surrendering freedoms.

<b>Blaming guns is just stupid.</b> Guns were already banned on campus. The gun ban didn&#39;t work.

Last year, the State of Virginia dismissed a bill that would have allowed law-abiding students with a concealed-carry permit to bring their guns on campus, just as they are allowed to bring them anywhere else in the state. It was struck down. Its insensitive to say, but if just one of those hundreds of students had a single gun, more people would be alive today.

<a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658"><span style="font-style: italic">"Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. &#39;I&#39;m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly&#39;s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.&#39;"</span></a>

<b>CNN Headline Prime kept showing movie posters for <span style="font-style: italic">Grindhouse</span></b> while Nancy Grace&#39;s substitute was blaming media violence. Apparently, <a href="http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/archive/2007/04/07/review-grindhouse.html">the Tarrantino/Rodriguez double-feature</a> is going to be turned into <a href="http://www.revisionisthistory.org/matrix.html">the next <span style="font-style: italic">Matrix</span></a> by the media. (Marilyn Manson-blaming is out of style) I&#39;ve already heard the <a href="http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/columbine-survivor-talks-about-columbine-rpg-171966.php">Super Columbine RPG</a> referenced on both Fox News and CNN Headline News, even though there is absolutely no reason to suggest that the killer even knew about the game, and the &#39;game&#39; is an anti-violent interactive documentary.

I remember coming home from seeing <span style="font-style: italic">Grindhouse</span> with a bunch of friends, and talking about how awesome the car battles were. We passed a real-life wreck on the freeway - the tone immediately changed and we all expressed sadness and hoped that no one was killed. There was no desensitization.

It is true that a small number of criticized studies have found links between exposure to media violence and aggression, especially in children. However, there has never been a study that showed exposure to media violence changed people into the type that commit real-life violent crimes. In fact, <a href="http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/05/12/vlog-video-games-and-violence.html">there is probably a cathartic effect</a> - violence in video games helps quell natural violent tendencies.

<b>Nevertheless, violence in the media can sometimes inspire real-life violence. Its called the "Copycat Effect."</b> 19th Century terrorists called it "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed">Propaganda of the Deed</a>," modern terrorist fighters call it "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4GW">fourth generation warfare</a>." Simply put, alienated young male sees an example of how a violent death made someone infamous and important. Alienated young male is evil, depressed and angry enough to place his own lust for importance over his own life and the lives of others. So alienated young male becomes an anarchist, neo-Nazi or Mujahideen and plots a crime that he&#39;s sure will get him attention in the newspapers.

Historical examples are well-documented. Read <a href="http://hammernews.com/copycateffect.htm">Michael Hammerschlag&#39;s essay</a>. "<i style="font-style: italic">The 1774 Goethe book</i> The Sorrows of Young Werther <span style="font-style: italic">caused so many copycat suicides of lovelorn young men who dressed alike and shot themselves at the same time at their writing desk- straight from the story- that it was banned in Germany, Italy and Denmark</span>." Others include Shakespeare&#39;s <span style="font-style: italic">Romeo &amp; Juliet</span>, Stephen King&#39;s novel <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_%2528novel%2529"><span style="font-style: italic">Rage</span></a>, Scorsese&#39;s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley%252C_Jr.#Obsession_with_Jodie_Foster"><span style="font-style: italic">Taxi Driver</span></a> and, more than any other, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film">Zapruder film</a>.

We don&#39;t know anything about the shooter yet, but it seems obvious that this was a Columbine-copycat. At this time every year, somewhere in the country, kids get caught planning a Columbine-style attack. This Virginia Tech terrorist was probably trying to outdo the Columbine murderers.

<b>The Columbine massacre occurred on April 20th - this Friday</b>. Although this is also Hitler&#39;s birthday, the murderers&#39; videos indicate that the attack was originally scheduled for April 19th - the same day at the Oklahoma City attack, which, according to their videos, the Columbine terrorists hoped to outdo. The Oklahoma City bombing of course, was scheduled for April 19th in order to avenge Janet Reno&#39;s misdeeds in the Waco disaster.

The shooter&#39;s actions demonstrate advance planning. He didn&#39;t get spurned by his girlfriend and suddenly decide to go on a rampage - although a domestic dispute could have pushed the massacre up a few days.

This is all just speculation. If the terrorist turns out to be an exchange student from overseas, he might not have been able to appreciate the significance of Columbine in our generation&#39;s psyche, and the timing could be coincidental.

People need someone to blame - the police, Hollywood, the NRA, our "culture of violence" - anyone.</b> It is almost incomprehensible that tragedies of this magnitude can happen for no good reason at all.

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Original Source: <a href="http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/free_markets/">http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/free_markets/</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0</a>.

Adam Roberts

2007-05-29

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0

eng

Media Warning

These warnings are posted everywhere on campus buildings to ward off the media from attending class when the students returned.

Original source: <a href=" http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468776222/"> http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/468776222/</a>

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Paul Trum

2007-05-29

Chad Newswander

Paul Trum
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Virginia Tech Grieves Online

Posted by <a href="http://www.profy.com/profile/cyndy-aleo-carreira/">Cyndy Aleo-Carreira</a> on April 17th, 2007

I know that I speak for everyone here at Profy when I say that our thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims of yesterday&#39;s events at <a href="http://www.vt.edu/">Virginia Tech</a>.

The horror of yesterday will live in the hearts and minds of the Virginia Tech community, the United States, and much of the world for some time to come, but what moved me the most was the way in which what would have been a local, and somewhat national, event even a few years ago moved worldwide due to a global online community.

The first reports of what was happening on the VT campus came from students sending reports via their cell phones. Today, the grief of the VT community has moved online.

On the University&#39;s own <a href="http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/">website on the tragedy</a>, updates are presented in blog format, the Convocation held today was streamed live, and is available to students, faculty, and families as a podcast, as it contains information on resources available for counseling and information.

On <a href="http://www.livejournal.com">LiveJournal</a>, a professor shares his grief online, giving us a mere glimpse of the person (and student) that <a href="http://tekmagika.livejournal.com/672246.html">Reema Samaha</a> was.

On <a href="http://www.facebook.com">Facebook</a>, comments have been left on the pages of victims from friends as well as students at rival schools, and sorority sisters and fraternity brothers from other chapters.
<a href="http://www.myspace.com">MySpace</a> includes an &quot;official&quot; <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&amp;friendid=42548491">VT page</a>&nbsp;called HokieNation which has been updated with a VT emblem with wings and a cartoon showing anthropomorphic characters of other universities gathered around the VT character with the caption &quot;Today we are all Hokies.&quot; Many user icons of VT alums and students as well as people affiliated with the university, like radio stations that broadcast VT games have changed their avatars to a black ribbon with the VT emblem.

And comments have been left on articles ranging from blogs to news sites.

Twenty years ago, we&#39;d have seen this as a tragedy, watched the footage on CNN, and that would have been the end of it. In the age of Web 2.0, anyone with enough inclination and five minutes of time can reach out to those most closely affected by events and let them know how many people are thinking of them. Over 650 comments have been left on the HokieNation MySpace page alone in the past two days.

If Web 2.0 is remembered for nothing else, it will be remembered for giving us this ability to quickly connect with people. In this instance, it gives a personal insight into the lives of the victims that makes them much more than simply a name in a newcast.

Additional information: <a href="http://www.people.com">People</a>

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Original Source: <a href="http://www.profy.com/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-grieves-online/">http://www.profy.com/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-grieves-online/</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/">Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication</a>.

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira

2007-05-29

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication

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NBC Should Never Have Aired the Virginia Tech Video

By: Jack Myers / <a href="http://blogs.mediavillage.com/jack/">Jack Myers Think Tank</a> (Blog)

May 07, 2007

The more I think and talk to people about NBC&#39;s handling of Cho Seung-Hui&#39;s videos following the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the more convinced I am the decision was mishandled and wrong. Roger Delaney of Zephyr Media Group commented "I think that, even knowing that the data would make it into the public domain though other channels, NBC erred when they decided to air Cho&#39;s &#39;multimedia manifesto&#39;. There is no question that he accomplished exactly what he&#39;d hoped to - his heinous actions gave him a forum through which he could spew his venomous message to the entire nation. Did any of us need to see that? Did airing that footage do anything other than grant Cho the postmortem glory he was clearly seeking? And was there any way for NBC to air that footage without appearing to be chasing ratings? The answer to all those questions is, in my mind, unequivocally &#39;no&#39;."

Neale Martin of Ntlec, whose daughter is a sophomore at VT, added, "NBC should never have provided a platform for this lunatic; it will encourage every sociopath to strive toward even more carnage. Even posted on YouTube, it would not have the same impact as being put on broadcast news. My daughter is a sophomore at VT and three classmates from her Monday 8 am class were killed the next period. As a former journalist I am sickened by how low this profession has sunk."

There are endless arguments about free speech, about how the videos would have found their way into the public eye and, of course, NBC&#39;s responsibility not only to the audience but to shareholders as well, for whom any ratings opportunity is more important than issues of the public good.

My initial instinct was to accept that NBC aired the videos, but to criticize both NBC and other networks for the gratuitous promotions they ran and the hype leading up to the news reports. In retrospect, I believe NBC has done great harm to the NBC network news brand, to Brian Williams, and to the overall public perception of network broadcast news. What an extraordinary opportunity NBC had to stand above the obvious commercial opportunism and draw a line in the sand. This is not about military action about which there is ongoing national debate. This is not about a major ongoing news story or about a celebrity or political figure.

This was about one mass murderer broadcasting his message of hate in America&#39;s most prestigious and trusted environment. This was a classically disturbed person who saw the media as his road to immortality - murder was the affect but media exposure was the cause. And NBC, through its actions, fell prey to the most base instincts of tabloid media upon which Cho depended.

What would have been the end result if NBC has moved the videos onto the NBC news website, losing the ratings opportunity? Or what if NBC had simply refused to air the video at all and had turned it over to the FBI? Jeff Beliveau of Consumer Networks asked "Before acting, did my fellow human beings ask themselves &#39;Is what I&#39;m about to do creating good? Or evil? Am I doing nothing other than causing harm by pursuing my own narrow self-interests?&#39;" There are many arguments being used to justify NBC&#39;s decision, and it&#39;s unlikely any other network would have responded differently.

But what&#39;s missing in the aftermath of Virginia Tech is a true industry debate and dialogue on NBC&#39;s decision and the role of network broadcast news in a media environment in which news is ubiquitous and all-pervasive. Do the broadcast networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - have a responsibility to stand above the onrush of tabloid journalism? Is it their responsibility to air or not to air the rantings of crazed killers? Is it appropriate to give those people who have no further rights to be a part of our society the credibility that broadcast network television infers? Be a part of the debate. Let me know your opinion.

Share your comments at <a href="http://www.mediavillage.com/sound_off/">MediaVillage SoundOff</a>.

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Original Source: <a href="http://blogs.mediavillage.com/jack/archives/2007/05/nbc_should_neve.html">http://blogs.mediavillage.com/jack/archives/2007/05/nbc_should_neve.html</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5</a>.

Jack Myers

2007-05-27

Brent Jesiek

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Media Coverage of the Virginia Tech Massacre

Charles Warner / <a href="http://www.mediacurmudgeon.com/">Media Curmudgeon Blog</a>

Television has once again gone on a rampage of gluttony over the tragic murders at Virginia Tech. However, it depends on your definition of what constitutes gluttony and what kind of TV you&#39;re talking about.

First, all television is not cut from the same cloth. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox are all-news cable channels, so they have a 24-hour news hole to fill. Because TV is inelastic, the three national news channels can neither expand or contract time nor add or subtract hours to the clock. Thus they fill those 24-hours with what each thinks the majority of their viewers will find compelling. And, of course, they all choose the same stories in what has become a cycle of competitive reinforcement, confirmation, and excess.

If CNN airs a story, then Fox and MSNBC producers say, "That confirms that the story is important�CNN (Fox, MSNBC) is running it." They also say, "We&#39;ve got to run the story more often and devote more resources to it or viewers will go elsewhere." Thus, the news cycle spins out of control. Furthermore, the three cable news networks have structured their programming in hour-long blocks, often with personality-hosts who do talk segments (Larry King, Lou Dobbs, Bill O&#39;Reilly), and the assumption, generally, is that viewers watch for about an hour, so they have to repeat the news cycle and the top stories every hour. In all-news radio, the news cycles are usually shorter. For example, New York&#39;s WINS has the famous tagline, "Give us 20 minutes and we&#39;ll give you the world." TV and radio all-news outlets are like a news faucet. The notion is that you can turn on a news station or channel at any time and the latest, most important news spews out.

Therefore, if you watch a TV news channel for longer than an hour, which happens with breaking news like the Virginia Tech story, you see the top story repeated, giving the impression of saturation and excess. And if you get sick of the coverage on one cable news network and turn to another, you see the same top story repeated, which increases the perception of excess coverage.

Furthermore, TV has much greater impact than any other medium because it engages viewers&#39; emotions through its blend of sight, sound, motion, and emotion. Thus videos of airplanes crashing into buildings or a killer&#39;s deadly ramblings leave much more dramatic and lasting impressions. And it is these impressions that magnify the perception of excess.

TV and radio are real-time linear; you can&#39;t rewind or fast forward. They are linear-accessed push media for which the audience can&#39;t control what is pushed out; their only option is turn off or switch outlets. Conversely, print media and the Internet are non-linear pull media in which the audience can select what they want, go back and forth, and have random access to content they are interested in. Therefore, when people have no control over what is pushed to them, they are more frustrated than when they can control their content, can pull what they want as often as they want.

With these parameters in mind, we can now ask several questions: 1) Should NBC have released the video, pictures, and ramblings of Cho Seung-Hui? 2) Overall, was the media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre excessive and insensitive? 3) Is the media leading the charge to assign blame? 4) What is Cho&#39;s proper name?

1. Should NBC have released the video, pictures, and ramblings of Cho Seung-Hui? NBC News President Steve Capus made the right decision to release the images and ramblings, not only to show them on NBC but also to release them to other news organizations. First, it was in the public interest to have information about the psychopathic killer distributed for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to bring closure to the horror and reassure people that there was no larger plot. Also, as Jack Shafer of <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2164717/nav/tap1/">Slate</a>, writes: "NBC News needn&#39;t apologize to anybody for originally airing the Cho videos and pictures. The Virginia Tech slaughter is an ugly story, but the five W&#39;s of journalism�who, what, where, when, and why�demand that journalists ask the question &#39;why?&#39; even if they can&#39;t adequately answer it. If you&#39;re interested in knowing why Cho did what he did, you want to see the videos and photos and read from the transcripts. If you&#39;re not interested, you should feel free to avert your eyes."

NBC could not have kept the pictures for itself and away from other news organizations. But did it run the images too often? Yes, and it admitted as much by restricting their use after complaints from victims&#39; families, and Virginia Tech and Virginia officials. And while we don&#39;t know if the complaints had anything to do with the decision, I think they probably did. However, the manner in which NBC promoted the video tapes on Brian William&#39;s "Nightly News" was a little too self-congratulatory, and MSNBC was clearly over the top in its greedy self-promotion. Chris Matthews, in particular, should be pistol-whipped for his callous, gloating promotion of the Cho videos. But what&#39;s so surprising about that? NBC&#39;s grade is B minus for sharing the material and eventually restricting the use of the images to no more than 10 percent of any news program. MSNBC&#39;s grade is F. CNN&#39;s grade is D, mostly for contributing to the feeding-frenzy coverage. Fox News&#39; grade is F, for using the videos, as MSNBC did, as video wallpaper. NPR&#39;s grade is A. Without pictures, radio doesn&#39;t have the impact of TV, so NPR could be more thoughtful and do more meaningful, sensitive sidebars, which it did.

2. Overall, how was the media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre; was it excessive and insensitive? Yes and yes. The amount of coverage was excessive because of the nature of cable and radio all-news outlets, particularly in the use of the killer&#39;s video on TV. Worse, in my view, was the invasion and occupation of the Virginia Tech campus by hordes of insensitive reporters who bombarded the privacy of the university, the campus, students, victims, and their families in a frenzy to get scoops. NPR recounted the story of a female student who lived in the dorm where the first killings took place. Her dorm was locked down, but, somehow, a female magazine reporter gained access, entered her room and asked her for an interview. The weeping student asked the reporter to leave and quit badgering her, and the reporter responded by handing the distraught student her business card and asked, "Call me." The student apparently replied, "What makes you think I&#39;d call you after what you just did?"

CNN sent four anchors to the campus and broadcast from there on Thursday. Was that necessary? Absolutely not. It was excessive, intrusive, and insensitive. Freedom of speech, yes. Invasion of privacy, yes. Come on, CNN, can&#39;t you see the ironic insensitivity in overkill on an overkill?

If the major media news organizations don&#39;t find a way to control this expensive, invasive, counter-productive feeding frenzy on major stories, they leave themselves vulnerable to the Federal government stepping in and regulating news coverage, which would be terrible. However, people are sick of this insensitive type of coverage, which gives them yet another reason for hating the media. So, slapping regulatory controls on the media by the government would more than likely be a popular move. The VT shootings might result in pool coverage of major stories, or guidelines or standards under the auspices of the Radio Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), but, whatever, the big news organizations had better do something.

3. Is the media leading the charge to assign blame? Yes. According to <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200704190009">Media Matters for America</a>, on the April 19 edition of "MSNBC Live" Boston radio host Michael Graham told MSNBC&#39;s David Gregory that the whole story of the mass shooting "is a story of people just freezing, of just letting him have their way [sic], except that one brave professor put himself in between the gunman and his students." So Graham blames the victims and MSNBC let him get away with it. <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1612492,00.html">TIME magazine</a> ran a commentary by John Cloud titled "Viewpoint: Va. Tech&#39;s President Should Resign," which blames Virginia Tech president, Dr. Charles W. Steger, for the massacre, which is ridiculous. Others in the media have blamed "passive students," Virginia&#39;s mental health providers, the campus police, the state&#39;s gun control laws, Cho&#39;s family, and South Koreans. All are hysterical over-reactions, except perhaps the reaction to gun-control laws.

Perhaps the media gets in a frenzy trying to find scapegoats to blame because it is trying deflect blame from itself to avoid the usual kill-the-messenger attitude of the public.

4. What&#39;s Cho&#39;s proper name? The New York Times, NBC, and MSNBC, among others, used the name Cho Seung-Hui, according to the Korean tradition of putting a family name first (thus, I would be Curmudgeon Media). CNN, NPR, and ABC, among others, used the American version of the name, Seung-Hui Cho, which I believe is proper because Cho&#39;s parents came to America when he was very young and he is a product of American culture, having gone to grade school, high school, and college in this country (his sister graduated from Princeton). Therefore, he should not have been referred to as "South Korean," which caused a rash of hate directed unfairly at Americans of South Korean decent and at South Koreans. Furthermore, the media confused the American public by using two different versions of his name. So, even though The New York Times used the Korean version, all the other media should have gone along, standardized the usage, and explained the American usage, as NPR did, in order to avoid confusion.

And what is the overall grade for the media? A failing grade of D. When will the media get its act together? It probably won&#39;t as long as it tries to appeal to people&#39;s baser instincts in its competition for ratings and in its attempt to find the lowest level of taste and decency. I think NBC, ABC, and, at times, CBS are trying, but they are not succeeding, just barely getting a passing grade. The cable channels aren&#39;t even trying to be decent; they&#39;re just trying to beat each other.

Posted by Charles Warner at April 21, 2007 10:36 AM

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Original Source: <a href="http://www.mediacurmudgeon.com/archives/2007/04/media_coverage.html">http://www.mediacurmudgeon.com/archives/2007/04/media_coverage.html</a>

Licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/1.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 1.0</a>.

Charles Warner

2007-05-26

Brent Jesiek

Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 1.0

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