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Sara Hood
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STAFF EDITORIAL
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2007-08-19
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By: STAFF EDITORIAL
Posted: 4/20/07
Just days after the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, NBC made the inappropriate decision to release videos of killer Cho Seung-Hui angrily ranting about the reasoning behind his crimes.
Cho had sent a package that contained 43 photos, 28 video clips and a 23-page letter directly to NBC headquarters in New York during a break in his shooting spree on Monday. After NBC first released the shocking "multimedia manifesto" on the NBC Nightly News broadcast, 24-hour news networks quickly followed suit, constantly showing the disturbing video excerpts and photo clips.
The media's release of Cho's photos and diatribe gave a deeper look into the mind and motivations of the killer, a decision that has had a great ripple affect across the country. While NBC stands by its decision to release the material, we believe the choice was made too hastily, without much thought or sensitivity for the families of the victims of the shooting, who have only had days to handle the emotional effects of losing their loved ones.
Forensic psychiatrist and ABC News consultant Michael Welner appeared on "Good Morning America" yesterday to discuss the troublesome consequences. "This is a social catastrophe," Welner said. "This is perversion...[Cho] needs to create and produce his own picture in order to give himself a sense of power. Nobody saw him that way...that's why he set this up and he did this to achieve immortality."
Welner's argument is logical. This footage does not present the public with any deeper knowledge about the crimes and, for that reason, it is not at all newsworthy. Instead, showing the video is a disrespectful and insensitive action toward the Blacksburg victims. Furthermore, the broadcast footage gives the fame-seeking Cho an audience and a stage where he can attempt to justify his crimes. In other words, it gives him exactly what he wanted.
The problem is that 24-hour news networks have the unsettling habit of overeagerly reporting breaking news before having time to reflect upon the consequences of their coverage. NBC and other media outlets are pressured to constantly search for exciting and stimulating material to put on the air and as a result, they neglect to spend time on research and deliberation.
That's what went wrong here. Cho's video collection was treated as news gold and was broadcasted without enough forethought. NBC and the other news networks had an obligation to act more responsibly. The videos and photos should have been carefully investigated before they were broadcast. Someone should have sat back and reflected upon the material and the negative repercussions that could follow.
Unfortunately, our media tends to do this kind of thing all the time. As soon as we turn on our televisions, we are bombarded with news tickers, terror alerts and breaking stories that are blown up and emphasized to the extreme. Networks play on fear and paranoia to attract viewers, giving us shocking and reactive spurts of material that only serve to rouse our emotions.
Instead of focusing on being the first to get the scoop, NBC and other media outlets should concentrate on thoughtfully investigating material before putting them on the air.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.pittnews.com/media/storage/paper879/news/2007/04/20/Opinion/Editorial.Media.Exploits.Killers.Manifesto-2870222.shtml>The Pitt News - April 20, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Pitt News
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Annie Tubbs <annietubbs@gmail.com>
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EDITORIAL - Media exploits killer's manifesto
media
media criticism
media response
pitt university
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Sara Hood
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Adan Berkowitz
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2007-08-14
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By:Adan Berkowitz
Posted: 4/18/07
In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, there's going to be a lot of people asking why this happened, or what could have been done to prevent this or keep it from happening in the future. I think pundits in the media and people on both sides of the gun debate would be wise to refrain from using the shooting to further their agendas. There's going to be a lot of people on both sides frothing at the mouth, saying this could have been prevented if only some of the students had been armed or if guns were made illegal or other such nonsense. Any group who tries to spin this into a crusade against violent media or for gun advocacy or for its own goals should be ripped apart by the press. Unfortunately, the press usually latches onto this kind of sensationalism and frames it as a crusade for some issue, instead of treating it as it really is: a monumental tragedy.
As a journalism student and a person who believes in general good taste, I have to say I was nauseated while watching events unfold on the news, not only because of what happened, but because of the way the media seemed to be wringing every drop they could from the story. With 24-hour news coverage, this comes as no surprise. For hours, networks would loop a 10-second clip of blurry cell phone footage, followed by mostly baseless speculation, followed by a parade of talking heads ready to blame the shooting on everything from video games to rap music. Jerks like Geraldo Rivera talk their mouth off even without any new information about the story. The media is relentless when it comes to stirring up a frenzy. We can't even wait until the dead are buried before all sorts of scaremongering like Fox News's brilliant article: "Experts: Colleges Ripe for Attacks." CNN ran some pretty tasteless stuff, too, like "Students Slaughtered." I know that "if it bleeds it leads," but you can almost smell the media sniffing blood like sharks do in the water. At least wait before all the facts are in before people like Anderson Cooper bring on some idiot who says this was caused by Grand Theft Auto. I can only imagine how the kids at Virginia Tech must feel, being swarmed by reporters with cameras and microphones trying to capture a sound byte of their grief.
All the facts haven't been released yet, but no matter what anyone says in hindsight, the sad truth is that nothing really could have prevented this. Virginia Tech officials are most likely going to catch enormous amounts of flak and lawsuits and probably lose their jobs, but who knows if there was anything they could have done differently. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of sensationalist articles about college safety forthcoming in the media, and I sincerely hope that colleges don't turn into locked-down fortresses because of one incident. Safety is important, but realistically there's only so much that can be done to prevent something like this, and we shouldn't believe that by insulating students further we can avert every incident of violence. All the metal detectors and random searches in the world aren't going to stop a determined nutcase.
I don't want to turn this into a debate about civil liberties, because this isn't about that. But people and officials are going to be scrambling to try and prepare for every contingency and start locking things up because everyone feels helpless and wants to think there was something they could have done. We want to be able to find reason in this, to view the shooting as part of an overarching trend, a result of our violent culture or our attitudes about gun control or whatever, because the truth -- that there isn't a reason, that there's no definite thing that would have stopped this -- is hard to accept.
My condolences go out to everyone at Virginia Tech, and I can't imagine how they are dealing with this. Hopefully the media will cut them some slack and will give them some time to grieve before they swoop in and start throwing blame on everyone except the guy who did it. Those kids whose lives and dreams were cut short are what's important, not your agenda.
Adan Berkowitz, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/paper87/news/2007/04/18/Opinion/Berkowitz.A.Campus.In.Grief.Distracted.By.Media.Attack-2849544.shtml>The Daily Free Press - April 18, 2007</a>
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eng
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Matt Negrin <editor@dailyfreepress.com>
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BERKOWITZ: A campus in grief distracted by media attack
boston university
journalism
media response
news coverage
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Sara Hood
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Anonymous
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2007-08-14
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By:Anonymous
Posted: 4/19/07
When a chilling multimedia package containing 27 video clips, 43 still pictures, a 23-page document and one audio clip composed by cold-blooded Virginia Tech murderer Cho Seung-Hui arrived on NBC's doorstep at Rockefeller Plaza yesterday morning, the station's editors faced a difficult decision.
They held in their hands a firsthand account of Cho detailing his twisted motives. With such information comes tremendous responsibility. NBC had the power to shape public perception about the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. But should it provide viewers the valuable details they deserve while giving the gunman the publicity he clearly wanted?
It had to be an incredibly difficult decision to make, but on its "Nightly News" broadcast, NBC aired video clips, pictures and words from Cho's package. And the broadcasting corporation handled its reporting as tastefully and tactfully as it could have.
Before even thinking about putting the information on the air, NBC contacted the FBI so investigators could begin looking at the vital material. NBC executives understood that it is more important to contribute to the case than it is to immediately post breaking news.
But NBC also understood the public has the right to learn as much as possible about the killer. Most will never understand Cho's motives, but everyone deserved to hear them. If NBC knew details but didn't expose the pertinent ones, it would not have been doing its job.
Before releasing any footage or sound bytes, though, Brian Williams made sure to preface the broadcast by saying the station knew it would be "airing the words of a murderer." And NBC had to be careful when doing this. If people who share Cho's beliefs think a violent rampage can warrant mass exposure of a killer's message, airing an overload of footage could inspire copycat actions.
Cho's actions themselves mimicked past rampages. In his statements, Cho made reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the 1999 Columbine High School murderers. Cho's motives, lifestyle and tactics in many ways mirrored the two Colorado killers.
And yesterday, BU experienced a copycat threat following Cho's massacre. Part-time BU student Andrew Rosenblum told a woman he dated that he wanted to recreate the Virginia Tech shootings at her Wheelock College campus.
But sadly, these threats will surface regardless of whether the media provides all the information or not. As a journalistic enterprise, NBC News had the responsibility to tell the story as it developed. And by carefully combing through the material in the package, NBC offered the most current and telling story it could yesterday.
-- Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.dailyfreepress.com/media/storage/paper87/news/2007/04/19/Opinion/Editorial.Airing.Murderous.Motives-2853045.shtml>The Daily Free Press - April 19, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Daily Free Press
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Matt Negrin <editor@dailyfreepress.com>
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EDITORIAL: Airing murderous motives
boston university
media mishandling
media response
publicity
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Sara Hood
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Bethany Quinn
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2007-08-09
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I'm from Virginia, and I know students at Va. Tech. I've been watching the irksome news coverage.
Death is always sad, but the silver lining is that it brings people together. Solidarity is why people are so compelled to tune in, and while Facebook has been great for that, the media sucked. Facebook may be prone to rumors, but you can tell who's missing and who to be concerned about.
The media, however, have been eking out widespread political implications of this tragedy, instead of bringing people together.
This event does have political ramifications, but the media has missed the mark by saying things like, in a nutshell, "He was born in a different country! Let's make this about immigration, despite the fact that most of his formative experiences were here in the US because he had lived here legally since he was eight!"
Or there's "How on earth could this psycho get a gun? Well, it was a completely mundane, legal purchase, and he bought it with 'chilling simplicity.' Let's interview the merchant and harp on gun control!"
Even on a 24-hour network, there are no gray areas in politics, so their coverage is ill-suited even for the wider audience. Gun control and free speech may be slippery slopes, but when free speech demonstrates a violent psychosis, how about a little gun control?
I hate to be blunt, but we all know the Cho type, and as individuals, we should reach out like the teacher did. As a campus policy, I'm not suggesting that loners should be branded on the forehead, but when a kid confuses fantasy and reality, expresses violent fantasies and suicidal thoughts, and finally gets sent to the counseling center while you've got him in the straightjacket, confiscate his registered guns.
Bethany Quinn
Senior and former Hurricane columnist
--
Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.thehurricaneonline.com/media/storage/paper479/news/2007/04/20/Opinion/Letters.To.The.Editor-2871116.shtml>The Miami Hurricane - April 20, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Miami Hurricane
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Greg Linch <greglinch@gmail.com>
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Media focus is off target
criticism
media coverage
media response
university of miami
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Sara Hood
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Aaron Schmidt
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2007-07-31
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Letters to the Editor
The forest for the trees
Tragedy struck at Virginia Tech Monday. Unfortunately, the sadness of events is not only in the actions themselves, but also in the reactions. I want to assert that we still need to keep an eye on the forest while inspecting the trees.
Reporter after reporter fired questions, and I use the term fired here for a reason, at Virginia Tech Police Chief Flinchum, about security policy. The officer looked visibly shaken, dismayed, saddened and reporters piled on frustration as he tried to deal with the condescending questions from the gallery.
Now, let's be clear. Was the reaction as good as it could have been? Of course not. Was it even good? It doesn't appear that it was. But let me say this. I'll bet that if you poll anyone who went to college after1999 (Columbine), you'll find that over 85 percent of the students have or had no idea of any kind of "lockdown policy." As a recent University graduate, I can't even tell you what the school's hurricane policy is. But here is where we're missing the point yet again. The problem here isn't campussecurity. Chief Flinchum didn't kill anyone. The Virginia Tech police didn't harm anyone. The problem yet again is gun control.
As we approach the eight year anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine, what has happened since? To truncate the depressingly long list of school shootings, I'll just focus on Virginia colleges. In 2002, the Appalachian School of Law was the site of a tragedy where a dean and fellow student were killed by a student. Two of these shootings in five years in the same state at college campuses exemplifies the problem we're facing as a nation.
So what's the real problem here? Is it security? Is it emergency response? Of course not. If people want to commit crimes, people will commit crimes. The problem is that when they want to commit these crimes, access to weapons with which to commit these crimes is tragic.
What's the answer? If we continue missing the forest for these trees, we'll never get to the real problem.
Aaron Schmidt
CLASS 2005
--
Original Source:<a href=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/letters.asp?pid=1583>The Cavalier Daily - April 18, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Cavalier Daily
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Meggie Bonner <meggiebonner@gmail.com>
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The forest for the trees
gun control
media response
uva
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Document
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Sara Hood
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Mark Humphrey
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2007-07-15
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An account of the resource
By Mark Humphrey
Monday, April 23, 2007
It's no secret that the news media exercises bad judgment at times.
Granted, we, as journalists, try to make informed decisions about what to cover and how. For example, during summer training at the Daily Bruin, we did a news-judgment exercise involving an actual story.
The story was about a baby who had been murdered by her father, and the story also highlighted how a welfare program had failed the family. The issue was whether to run a photo of a coroner holding a bag that had the baby's body in it - was the photo just simply shocking, or did it further the purpose of the story?
We ultimately decided we would run the photo. Our reasoning was that the photo, while shocking and potentially in poor taste, further hammered home the main point of the story - how social programs had failed this family so terribly.
Judging by the mainstream media's recent coverage of certain events, I think many journalists would do well to take part in this same exercise.
In the past few weeks we've been bombarded by three stories. First came radio douche bag Don Imus' derogatory remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Then came NBC's decision to broadcast Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui's videotaped rantings. Finally, there came Alec Baldwin's disturbing phone message to his daughter.
Aside from showing the ugly side of humanity, these stories have one thing in common: They were all covered in a misguided fashion.
With Imus, people were right to be up in arms. He defamed a group of talented young women at what was supposed to be their finest moment. Unfortunately, this story got hammered into the ground, filling the airwaves at every single second of the day. Why was this a problem? Because of media hypocrisy.
One of the main reasons the media gave for covering this so relentlessly was to right Imus' wrong: defaming a group of women because of what he thought of their physical appearance.
Yet, by covering this so excessively, Imus' comments have been replayed so many times it's gotten to the point where some would associate the Rutgers women less with basketball and more with Imus. It doesn't matter how untrue his remarks are, as the Rutgers women have almost solely been associated with Don Imus since their season ended because of the media firestorm.
Then there's Alec Baldwin's voice-mail tirade, where he refers to his 11-year-old daughter as a "thoughtless little pig" and vows to "straighten (her) out." Once again, media hypocrisy rears its ugly head. Ironically, so much has been said about the well-being of Baldwin's daughter while the real issue has gone ignored.
Namely, how well does it serve Baldwin's daughter to not only hear her parents' dirty laundry aired in public, but also to hear the phone message repeated on television? Wouldn't most sane people say that divorce hurts children, and that the more public the divorce, the more negative the effect on the child?
Bad news judgment reached its zenith with NBC's decision to air videos made by Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui. Naturally, the videos are all over YouTube.
Not only was the decision to air these videos in poor taste, but it didn't serve any purpose from a news standpoint. These videos added no new information and, more importantly, gave Cho exactly what he wanted: attention. Cho died, but NBC's airing of his videos got his message out to everyone.
In journalism, as much as some hate to admit it, the bottom line is still the bottom line. NBC aired these videos to get a jump on the competition, just like every news outlet jumped on them immediately afterward. Anyone who's shocked when the media does something sensational is hopelessly naive. If it bleeds, it leads and, more importantly, makes money.
When the media covers stories like this, it often claims moral superiority. It proclaims outrage and to know what is best for everyone. But if the way these situations have played out is any indication, it's clear that much of the time, the media doesn't have a clue.
While I'm often disgusted by what gets covered and how, I can't begrudge the news media for making a living.
But if they're going to proclaim they know what is best for everyone, they should think about who their coverage is really hurting first.
--
Original Source:<a href=http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/apr/23/imedia_doesnt_always_know_besti/>The Daily Bruin - April 23, 2007</a>
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eng
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Saba Riazati <editor@media.ucla.edu>
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Media doesn't always know best
media response
tragedy response
ucla