The headline reads:
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Restaurant patrons cringed and mothers turned their children away from the television as the video came up of an armed Cho Seung-Hui delivering a snarling, venomous tirade about rich "brats" and their "hedonistic needs."
The way the Virginia Tech story has played out on national television could have implications for longer than the images of the slain will be remembered. Positive and negative effects like anything will be felt.
On a positive note, perhaps the fact that the students there are demanding a better way to be informed during an emergency will prompt others throughout the country to take steps to form better plans. I know we have here.
But the negative result is what shakes me up. How many other sullen, mind twisted people are out there with delusional thoughts ready to jump now that the media has shown every last bit of the VT killers confessions? At what point do we cross the line and over saturate the coverage with his venom thus giving him exactly what he wanted in life and now has achieved in death?
Just asking.
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I can recall vivid daily images of horrific wounds and death to our troops in Vietnam, on the nightly news. I recall live television coverage of children with burnt skin, from napalm, and monks burning themselves alive. Although these were seen daily, for years, I do not recall those acts being copied by young adults here. As with the issue of gun control needing more people control, the root cause is not the graphics we see on our television screen, but, rather, the mental illness of the person who copies those acts. More needs to be done on that root cause than worrying about what is shown on television. I used to watch Superman on television, yet never did I jump from a building thinking I could fly. No doubt the news saturates us ad nausum with a news story, such as Virginia Tech, but that is not the cause of any copycats. I mentally derraneged person will figure out some way to act even if he didn't see it on TV.
NBC should be shamed for what they have done. One picture was enough. Think of what the families are feeling? What about the people who escaped? Shame on NBC.
NBC has no shame, they constantly feed us a load of crap on a daily basis and it's a shame that so many people have no access to other than the network channels for news.
I was in Vietnam during those years Greg and lived through a lot of what you saw on tv.
As long as there is money to be made, NBC is willing to dance in the blood of the victims. Their reporting is despicable.
Are we going to give every nut his five minutes of airtime? If you follow Anna Nicole Smith, it looks like we will.
There seems to be no journalistic restraint any longer. If it's sensational, they'll run it.
Oh I think the line was crossed after about the first 20 minutes of coverage. Non-stop coverage 24/7 does nothing to answer any questions about WHY. No amount of forensic probing will answer why this loon went on a killing spree.
We've been raised in a generation where we blame others for our shortcomings first. This wack job blamed everyone else for his failure as a human being.
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