Media Smackdown
April 22nd, 2007
As last week’s horrific events unfolded at Virginia Tech I became quickly exhausted with the media coverage. Yeah, like many I continued to read a few columnists but even that got tiresome and cringe worthy.
Towards the end of the week I became more interested in the commentary on the media coverage – or the criticism of the media, to be more exact.
Just when I thought it was safe to open a newspaper and not be assaulted by yet another banal out-of-context analysis of the tragedy - - along comes Michelle Jefferson’s “Gun laws aren't the answer,” in the Carroll County Times on Friday, April 20, 2007.
I’ve always been a 2nd Amendment advocate in the face of unwarranted intrusions by big government. But right now is not the time to start gazing at your navel and talking about gun control – for it or against it.
A responsible discussion on the part of today’s society as to what is the most responsible approach to the possession of a firearm is appropriate and I defend the right of those who are 2nd Amendment advocates to promote their position as much as I defend the right of those who advocate strict gun control.
But I’ve winced as the usual liberal suspects have started running off at the mouth about whether or not the tragedy would have occurred if it had not been for “this” or “that.” But the Left's drivel ad nauseum can easily be dismissed as the answer of background noise to a question the likes of which has never been determined.
However, as the week drew to a close, perhaps it was this op-ed from a conservative voice that really pushed me over the edge of disgust with the pundit’s coverage of the tragedy: Gun laws aren't the answer:
[…]
There was a moment at Virginia Tech when this kid had to reload. That would have been more than enough time for a professor to shoot back. Or if the professor who had the courage to hold the door to allow his students to escape would have had the same courage to shoot instead of holding the door, he and his students might still be alive.
[…]
You can read the rest of her column here: “Gun laws aren't the answer.”
That is – unless, you too are tired of the media pandering and coverage … Whatever.
The thought of most college professors possessing a sidearm in the classroom is something only Monte Python could do justice. Heckfire, I’m reluctant to give many liberal professors a piece of chalk much less a deadly weapon.
Why anyone would want to trivialize the tragedy at Virginia Tech by taking the opportunity to promote a political agenda is beyond comprehension.
Right now I have no time for folks who wish to ride their favorite political hobbyhorse on the back of what is otherwise an enormous human tragedy.
What we need right now is the steady glow of a prudent and human response and not a series of blinking lights.
Getting back to what initially set me off… was NBC’s sensationalization – if not romanticisation of the killer and the coverage of Fox News...
Of all the mainstream media; as much as I was flabbergasted at NBC utilizing the event to prop up their flagging ratings by sensationalizing the killer’s “multi-media manifesto” mailed to the network – I turned off Fox News quickly as the speculation, hyperbole, and sensationalization quickly reached unbearable levels.
Read: Backlash Leads to Pullback on Cho Video by AP television writer David Bauder. Or - The Media, The Killer & The Video by Washington Post Staff Writer Howard Kurtz – dated April 20th, 2007.
Also read Editor and Publisher’s take on the media coverage published on April 19th, 2007: “Flak Over Killer's Video Spilling Onto Newspaper Pages Too.”
By the time I read Michelle Jefferson’s op-ed piece in the Carroll County Times the other day – I just wanted to scream.
I turned off the salacious, hyped-up major news media coverage of the tragedy at Virginia Tech several days after the event - after I learned the identity and some of the background of the person who perpetrated the heinous crime.
I was extremely impressed to see the Virginia Tech community come together with class and dignity after the main stream media wanted to start pointing fingers and cause additional trouble by playing armchair critic of the folks who actually lived the nightmare and responded the best way they could.
When college students start defending a college president and the campus chief of police and tell the media to go away, ya know for sure, the media has crossed the line.
Read: Virginia Tech Students Return to Campus :
[…]
Students say they welcome the outpouring of support they have received, but they have grown noticeably weary of the news media. The Student Government Association asked reporters to leave by the start of classes Monday.
[…]
Students interviewed by The Associated Press on campus in recent days say they and everyone they know intends to return.
``This is the best school around,'' said Steven Mason, a senior from
Said Cheryl Gambardella, Brittany Gambardella's mother, as she helped her daughter unload the car: ``We love this school. You always have concerns, but not because it's Virginia Tech. It could happen in a shopping mall.''
Read the entire article here: Virginia Tech Students Return to Campus
The job of our nation is support the greater Virginia Tech community if help is asked for and the job of the media is to stop harassing the college students and the university.
And don’t lecture me about the rights of the free press. With those rights comes a collective higher moral and philosophical responsibility. And if the media cannot live up to their responsibilities - that we can exercise our rights and responsibilities and turn the channel and not read the paper of those institutions that want to continue making a spectacle of a horrific human tragedy.
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