It seems I’ll spend today agreeing with Sebastian.
Somewhere out there, there is another person who’s life is crap, who feels powerless, who is watching this, and entering his own murder-suicide fantasy. The media, who are only happy to portray a man with a gun as a force that strikes fear into the hearts of mere mortals, by parading the victims before the camera to talk about how scared they were, by prattling on about the power of the weapon he used, and by repeating the killer’s name far and wide to the point it becomes a household name.
Read it all.
If you’re looking for a finger to point, point it at the news media. They’re the people who empower the Va Tech shooters, they’re the people who provide incessant coverage after the fact.
And because I don’t want the finger of hypocrisy waved in my face, I’m done talking about this. Unless the Brady Campaign or other anti-gun groups start shouting lies based on this case, you won’t hear another word from me about it. I’m sick of the media blasting us with constant coverage about every dirt bag that decides to kill other humans as an attempt to validate his own pathetic existence.
I’m just so sick and fed-up with The Media – I’m over them and all their unctuous officiousness.
I agree.
The news media can report this correctly without some sort of vindication to the shooter. There was one – ONE – station out of 7 that didn’t overdo it here.
News media only seems to thrive with sensationalist stories, so they’ll play up the worst in a tragedy. Fox News really pissed me off by blaming everything from the camouflage to the gun to the video games the kid played.
What’s the alternative, though? Pretend it never happened? Wrap the masses in a swaddling cloth of unreality?
Don’t be stupid, Kal. We don’t want them to not report it, we just want them to not be assholes about it. The kid wanted to “go out in a blaze of glory”, and this kind of reporting guarantees that someone else will have the same thought.
You can report the facts without being sensationalist.
If it’s covered in The Media (whatever those caps are supposed to mean), it’s going to have approximately the same effect.
The line dividing sensationalist reporting and “wrap(ping) the masses in a swaddling cloth of unreality” (Very poetic. Well done.) is about as narrow as a 10 lane superhighway. How about this:
“Good evening I’m Guy Infield and this is the 10 o’clock news. A tragedy in Omaha today, several people gunned down in a shopping mall by a young man wielding a rifle. The gunman took his own life after his crime spree We don’t have all the details yet, but early reports of a suicide note indicate he was acting alone in a cry for attention. We will not be speculating on his background or motives, but we will update you with any concrete details we may uncover. And now, the sports.”
See? Now people know what happened, know the gunman is not still running amok, and are not subjected to any pro- or anti-gun opinions disguised as fact.
I would probably have a heart attack if someone reported a shooting like that.
The tone there is… decidedly odd. Most people would probably consider it an inappropriately glib treatment.
On a different note, it seems that Huckabee thinks TEH GAYZ will destroy civilization. Second Q & A pair on that page.
I find it sad that most people would consider that inappropriate or glib. If you want to see someone stating an opinion, watch a talk show. If you want to see someone cry, watch Lifetime. If you want to see just the facts, watch the news. Why should we count on news programs for drama or opinion? Why should we shy from blunt phrasing just in case we might hurt someone’s feelings? This is a case where the aggressor was clearly a scumbag. Maybe sick, maybe depressed, but still a scumbag. What’s next?
“Today in New York City, several men, possibly of middle eastern decent, felt that our cultural differences were too great and, in a show of their commitment to open dialogue, committed an act that some might find to be extreme when they crashed several airliners into a prominent building.”
Quit calling it a tragedy. It most definitely was not a tragedy. It was an atrocity.
A tragedy can be a hurricane, a tornado, a flood, an accident or any number of other unintended misadventures with tragic consequences. An atrocity can only be committed by a person or group of persons.
When called by its proper name, ATROCITY, there is no doubt whatsoever that the perpetrator is to blame. Excuses are not appropriate for an atrocity, but when called “tragedy” somehow excuses abound and calls for understanding are heard at the same time calls for enabling the victimization of even more people are being heard.
Called by it proper name, atrocity, there is no room for that stupidity, nor for the stupidity of insisting more people be forced into defenselessness. Nobody, not even the Brady’s have enough guts to campaign favorably for continued atrocity, but they sure do for tragedy.
An insane person is generally not considered to be in control of their own actions. It’s a tragedy because it’s very difficult to blame the insane.
I don’t think this guy was insane. He was well aware of what he was doing, he just didn’t care what lives he ruined on his way to infamy.