18 Apr '07 - 986 W - + 8 - 8 Vaudeville Tech
I'm sick of hearing about the Virginia Tech shootings.
There. I said it. And I'm not sorry.
During the six hours or so that CNN is on near me each day for the last few days, virtually every second of coverage has been about the VA Tech shootings. When they lay out their plans for the remainder of the evening, each host's segment is based around some aspect of that tragedy. I think this entire media circus is absurd. It's yet another glaring example of nearly the entire country collectively failing to grasp the important nuances of an issue.
The VA Tech shootings simply are not worthy of such incredible national attention. I don't see how this is in any way disputable, and yet here it is. I have heard people describe it as -- no joke -- a "national crisis." Wake up! How is this a national crisis? Huge portions of the country have never even been to the state of Virginia and never will, and to others the only noteworthy part of Virginia is the part in and around King's Dominion (Richmond, if you're wondering, some three and a half hours away). It will never affect the overwhelming majority of the populace; it's a sensationalist story being aired for ratings.
I don't hold the media solely accountable; there's a certain public complicity here in that, yes, this material is being aired for ratings, but those ratings indicate that people want to see this stuff. There's an undeniably huge market for it. It's a vicious cycle -- media outlets will never stop pushing this stuff while people want to see it, and people will never want to stop seeing it while media outlets are pushing it.
The desperation to keep viewers hooked is leading to some rather strange coverage choices, as well. This morning I saw an interview with the president of the Virginia Tech Indian Students' Association. Why would CNN choose to interview the president of the Indian Students' Association? I have no idea, and frankly I don't think they do either. The only connection I could come up with is that one of the slain professors was of Indian descent.
Another issue with which I have big problems is that CNN and its ilk aren't content to simply leech parasitically off of the tragedy that's already occurred. No, they're not satisfied with that -- there's not enough blood there for them. So they're actually trying to drum up
more drama. When people don't seem inclined to provide sufficiently newsworthy commentary, the interviewers begin asking leading questions, trying to get their subjects to say something about how they saw the psychosis in Cho Seung-Hui's character or how the president of the university should have done more or blah blah blah.
Which brings me to my next point.
Lay off the University President, you nimrods. There are loads of reasons why he doesn't deserve the flak he's getting. After the initial shooting -- two people in a dorm, for those keeping score at home -- everyone thought it was just an isolated incident, a domestic sort of dispute. Terrible, certainly, but nothing like the forthcoming engineering department incident. So there was no obvious need for a rapid response. Furthermore, they didn't know exactly what had happened -- the shooter actually went back to class for an hour or two in between, so they couldn't have done much with a warning other than incite a schoolwide panic. And let's not forget that most of the calls for immediate notification come from people with absolutely no comprehension of the logistical issues involved. One particularly boneheaded observation I've heard: "It's an engineering school, they've all got Blackberries or iPods. Why couldn't they send an email?"
VA Tech has a student population of approximately 26,000 students, and is integrated closely with the town it's in; the two together total about 40,000 people in a "real world" setting. That's not something you can just
close down with a flip of a switch. The initial incident was early in the morning, during coffee-and-donuts time, and within two hours the police were on the scene making good headway into the incident -- that's a pretty good response time for a small-town PD, especially in the early morning. Most importantly?
This isn't the kind of thing you plan for, people. It's not like there was a fire, where people train and drill for it. This was a
mass murder. Go ahead. Control a totally unexpected mass murder in two hours. I double dog dare you.
The one good thing I see about this inane dogpile is that, outside of the media outlets themselves,
no one is buying it. Nearly everyone I talk to thinks the president is being unfairly maligned. There doesn't seem to be any backlash against him from the university. The same student body that, in their state of shock, complained about the lack of notification, gave him a standing ovation today.
I want to stress that, when I complain about the scale of the coverage, I am not trying to belittle the event. It was a terrible tragedy -- it's just that it's one that happens to be confined to Blacksburg, Virginia and the university and the families of those involved. The parents of one of the victims were admitted to the hospital to be treated for shock, and I think that's fine -- this is an absolutely horrific, lifechanging event for every one of the survivors and their families. But it shouldn't be taking over the news.
Why do I care? Because it's... well, okay, it's not that it's not important. To the families of the people who were killed on Monday, I doubt there's anything more important going on anywhere in the world right now. But to most of the country, there are other critical things going on, and quite simply, they should be getting news coverage too.
Look on the bright side – at least they’re focusing on his depressing plays, rather than saying it was because he played videogames. Now we can blame the english language for murder, I call that progress.
Aaron () (URL) - 19 April '07 - 09:40