Sunday, April 22, 2007

Media reaction to Virginia Tech shooting hits a new low.

Up until today I have refused to make any public comments or opinions, other than offering condolences, about this massacre out of the respect for the lives lost and family and friends who continue to morn.

A horrendous incident such as the Virginia Tech shooting affects people in different ways. Obviously, every balanced persons reaction would be sorrow. But for some people, like myself, that initial sorrow is mixed with anger and questions. How in the hell could something like this happen?

So instead of taking the chance to allow my anger to overshadow my sorrow and sadness for the families and friends who have lost loved ones I decided not to comment right away.
In a much different time, not to long ago, this kind of incident would not require a comment of opinion, but as I followed the story, I became more and more disturbed by the tone of the coverage.

Unfortunately, the media and others have not shared the same respects. Within hours the media was playing the blame game and using this event to try and boost their ratings.
Fox News Geraldo Rivera blamed the Virginia Tech administration and campus police for not locking down the campus after the first shootings. Even though the investigation that was filed did not indicate any further threat.

Others were using it to advance political agendas. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the gun control crowd jumped on the Virginia Tech tragedy to push their disarmament agenda. They could not even wait a day before chiming in.

The infamous tape sent to NBC has had continuous airtime. One MSNBC anchor Michelle Kosinski was talking about how sad this story is and how horrible it must be for the students. She spoke about how the students became physically sick when they saw the tape. Yet they continued to show the tape over and over again.

The president of NBC Steve Capus made the comment that the news room was torn over what to do with the tape. Yeah, so torn they made numerous copies of the tape to distribute to all the other networks, before handing it over to the police. So torn they made sure they all had the NBC logo and every other network had to mention the tape was courtesy file of NBC. So torn over the tape it ran almost nonstop for four consecutive days.

The media’s reaction to this is really no surprise. The over sensationalism of the news has been around for a while now, but to play the blame game in order to boost ratings hours after the shootings is a new low. Crying crocodile tears while pushing a political agenda while the bodies are still at room temperature is even lower.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We agree with you 100%.

We believe that the news media have a responsibility to the public to report the news. We also believe that the media have made grave errors by airing the senseless propaganda of Cho Seung-hui. By airing his videos, pictures, and written manifesto the media have caused unnecessary trauma to his many victims and their survivors. They have also endangered our society by rewarding this heinous criminal activity, which already has and will likely continue to spur copycat activities in communities across the United States and the world. If you agree with our opinions, please sign our petition requesting a public apology and admission of error from NBC News.

newsboycott.com.