Virginia Tech Exploitation
Let me start off by saying to everyone involved in the tragedy yesterday at Virginia Tech, I am praying for your healing. I don’t know any of you personally but I am a mother. I have a son who will start college in the Fall. If my son was to die in such a horrific fashion, I don’t think I could ever recover.
But that’s not what I want to say here. Like millions of other people yesterday, I became aware of the shootings when I was online, at msn.com and foxnews.com. As the numbers of people killed and wounded continued to climb, I confess I became fixated on what was happening. Who was the shooter? How many victims? Did I know anyone at Virginia Tech? Was the shooter really wearing a bullet proof vest? What did they mean by “domestic situation” in the first shooting?
I don’t know why I (and surely a lot of other people) become so obsessed with knowing the details. I think it’s because in any tragedy, I want to know a reason. I don’t want it to be random. If I know the reason, then I can feel confident that something similar won’t befall me, or a loved one of mine, because I don’t place myself in the kind of situation that led to the tragedy. An example might be speeding down the highway in a drunken stupor at 4 a.m. and ensuing firey crash. Not gonna happen to me.
Or maybe it is something that could happen to me. Maybe if I know the reason, I can refrain from doing the thing that led to someone else’s demise. Like the lady in our area a few years ago, my own age, who was hit by a car and killed while walking her black lab. It seems she would keep the leash wrapped around her wrist to control the dog better. When the dog bolted out into the street to chase a rabbit (or something…you never know with black labs), he dragged his owner with him, right into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I immediately changed the way I walk my dog (also a black lab) and made sure my kids know never to wrap the leash around their wrist when they walk her either.
Danger: reduced or eliminated. Check.
This strategy is wholly ineffective when it comes to crimes like the Virginia Tech shootings. There is just no way to make sense of it. By late yesterday people were already calling for the President of Virginia Tech to resign because of the school’s failure to adequately warn the campus population of the first shooting, as well as the failure to lock down the campus after the first shooting.
Hindsight, of course, being 20/20.
I don’t know if Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech, is good at his job. I know nothing about him, other than what I saw on TV yesterday. He has an impressive resume (detailed on the VT website). Should he and the Board of Visitors (the governing authority at Virginia Tech) have been expected to anticipate a slaughter of historic proportions on campus? Going forward, unfortunately, all Presidents on all campuses will have to anticipate that a tragedy of this magnitude could happen. But to blame President Steger now? It seems a stretch to me.
My guess is that people want to blame someone, so it might as well be Steger. They want to find a reason, something to explain, how 32 people (33 if you count the shooter) could have been murdered in a 2 hour span. If they find a reason, maybe they will find comfort.
Yes, by all means, analyze how this situation unfolded, how the university responded to it, find out what went wrong in that response, create a plan for next time. We all know there will be a next time. But blaming after the fact, that is just not helpful.
And speaking of responses, I want to say that I am disgusted by some of the so-called reporting I saw on TV yesterday. Notably, Katie Couric on CBS last night (I should know better than to watch her but I was fixating) interviewed a young man who was in one of the classrooms where lots of people were killed. He had been shot in the arm & his arm was in a sling. Sympathetic Katie stuck her microphone in his face, asking questions about what he saw, what he thought, what happened to the professor in the room (basically forcing this kid to say his professor was shot in the head right in front of him). The kid, to me, looked like he was in shock. Understandably.
To Katie, it’s all about ratings. She should not have interviewed this young man. She took advantage of his vulnerability. If her daughter witnessed a murder, would she want a reporter sticking a microphone in her face, asking “How did you feel, honey, when you saw the blood gushing out of his head?” Katie’s questions were not so far from that.
And this morning, I turned on CNN (I like Soledad O’Brien), but the normal morning program was replaced by reporters on the scene at VT. Reporter Kiran Chetry was interviewing a student named Zach, who was in a classroom in the building where most of the shootings took place. They said Zach’s quick thinking (barricading the door) may have saved countless lives. Zach looked like he was in shock. I would wager in a week he won’t even remember talking to the esteemed Ms. Chetry. She kept asking questions, he looked like he was going to break down any second (something I’m sure she was hoping for—what great video! Make it a podcast! Quick!) It was obscene. Here’s a kid who should have been in his mother’s arms, not paraded out for a CNN audience. I’m praying for Zach too.
These so-called journalists must hail from the Dan Rather school of interviewing. The whole spectacle reminded me of nothing more than a Dan Rather interview I saw back in 1989. The context was the San Francisco earthquake that struck the Bay Area just before the third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park. The devastation was widespread. One of the most horrific images from that earthquake was the collapse of sections of I-280, where slabs of concrete crushed people in cars in the lanes below. Dan scored an interview with a survivor from I-280, someone who was trapped in his car while people around him were crushed. The guy was traumatized. Dan kept asking: How did the people in cars around you look? Well, gee Dan, they just had ten tons of concrete dropped on their heads, they didn’t look so good. Dan kept pressing for the gory details. Obscene.
And on one channel (not sure but I think it was Fox), after the 7:00 news broadcast, they aired a special report, that began with cameras panning around the Virginia Tech campus, with uptempo music playing in the background, like it was just another exciting news day. I was disgusted.
Has anyone ever heard of a moment of silence? Is nothing sacred? Does everything have to be turned into a media circus for our viewing pleasure?
Let people have their grief in private. Let us mourn with them. Let us pray for them. Don’t let us exploit them.
I felt if I kept watching I would be complicit in the media’s efforts to exploit the tragedy. I turned it off. But I won’t forget.
But that’s not what I want to say here. Like millions of other people yesterday, I became aware of the shootings when I was online, at msn.com and foxnews.com. As the numbers of people killed and wounded continued to climb, I confess I became fixated on what was happening. Who was the shooter? How many victims? Did I know anyone at Virginia Tech? Was the shooter really wearing a bullet proof vest? What did they mean by “domestic situation” in the first shooting?
I don’t know why I (and surely a lot of other people) become so obsessed with knowing the details. I think it’s because in any tragedy, I want to know a reason. I don’t want it to be random. If I know the reason, then I can feel confident that something similar won’t befall me, or a loved one of mine, because I don’t place myself in the kind of situation that led to the tragedy. An example might be speeding down the highway in a drunken stupor at 4 a.m. and ensuing firey crash. Not gonna happen to me.
Or maybe it is something that could happen to me. Maybe if I know the reason, I can refrain from doing the thing that led to someone else’s demise. Like the lady in our area a few years ago, my own age, who was hit by a car and killed while walking her black lab. It seems she would keep the leash wrapped around her wrist to control the dog better. When the dog bolted out into the street to chase a rabbit (or something…you never know with black labs), he dragged his owner with him, right into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I immediately changed the way I walk my dog (also a black lab) and made sure my kids know never to wrap the leash around their wrist when they walk her either.
Danger: reduced or eliminated. Check.
This strategy is wholly ineffective when it comes to crimes like the Virginia Tech shootings. There is just no way to make sense of it. By late yesterday people were already calling for the President of Virginia Tech to resign because of the school’s failure to adequately warn the campus population of the first shooting, as well as the failure to lock down the campus after the first shooting.
Hindsight, of course, being 20/20.
I don’t know if Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech, is good at his job. I know nothing about him, other than what I saw on TV yesterday. He has an impressive resume (detailed on the VT website). Should he and the Board of Visitors (the governing authority at Virginia Tech) have been expected to anticipate a slaughter of historic proportions on campus? Going forward, unfortunately, all Presidents on all campuses will have to anticipate that a tragedy of this magnitude could happen. But to blame President Steger now? It seems a stretch to me.
My guess is that people want to blame someone, so it might as well be Steger. They want to find a reason, something to explain, how 32 people (33 if you count the shooter) could have been murdered in a 2 hour span. If they find a reason, maybe they will find comfort.
Yes, by all means, analyze how this situation unfolded, how the university responded to it, find out what went wrong in that response, create a plan for next time. We all know there will be a next time. But blaming after the fact, that is just not helpful.
And speaking of responses, I want to say that I am disgusted by some of the so-called reporting I saw on TV yesterday. Notably, Katie Couric on CBS last night (I should know better than to watch her but I was fixating) interviewed a young man who was in one of the classrooms where lots of people were killed. He had been shot in the arm & his arm was in a sling. Sympathetic Katie stuck her microphone in his face, asking questions about what he saw, what he thought, what happened to the professor in the room (basically forcing this kid to say his professor was shot in the head right in front of him). The kid, to me, looked like he was in shock. Understandably.
To Katie, it’s all about ratings. She should not have interviewed this young man. She took advantage of his vulnerability. If her daughter witnessed a murder, would she want a reporter sticking a microphone in her face, asking “How did you feel, honey, when you saw the blood gushing out of his head?” Katie’s questions were not so far from that.
And this morning, I turned on CNN (I like Soledad O’Brien), but the normal morning program was replaced by reporters on the scene at VT. Reporter Kiran Chetry was interviewing a student named Zach, who was in a classroom in the building where most of the shootings took place. They said Zach’s quick thinking (barricading the door) may have saved countless lives. Zach looked like he was in shock. I would wager in a week he won’t even remember talking to the esteemed Ms. Chetry. She kept asking questions, he looked like he was going to break down any second (something I’m sure she was hoping for—what great video! Make it a podcast! Quick!) It was obscene. Here’s a kid who should have been in his mother’s arms, not paraded out for a CNN audience. I’m praying for Zach too.
These so-called journalists must hail from the Dan Rather school of interviewing. The whole spectacle reminded me of nothing more than a Dan Rather interview I saw back in 1989. The context was the San Francisco earthquake that struck the Bay Area just before the third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park. The devastation was widespread. One of the most horrific images from that earthquake was the collapse of sections of I-280, where slabs of concrete crushed people in cars in the lanes below. Dan scored an interview with a survivor from I-280, someone who was trapped in his car while people around him were crushed. The guy was traumatized. Dan kept asking: How did the people in cars around you look? Well, gee Dan, they just had ten tons of concrete dropped on their heads, they didn’t look so good. Dan kept pressing for the gory details. Obscene.
And on one channel (not sure but I think it was Fox), after the 7:00 news broadcast, they aired a special report, that began with cameras panning around the Virginia Tech campus, with uptempo music playing in the background, like it was just another exciting news day. I was disgusted.
Has anyone ever heard of a moment of silence? Is nothing sacred? Does everything have to be turned into a media circus for our viewing pleasure?
Let people have their grief in private. Let us mourn with them. Let us pray for them. Don’t let us exploit them.
I felt if I kept watching I would be complicit in the media’s efforts to exploit the tragedy. I turned it off. But I won’t forget.
posted by calabresewoman | 8:58 AM
2 Comments:
You're just as prurient as the people you are watching. if you wanted measured, accurate, even tempered coverage you would have abandoned these common denominator sensationalists (Fox!??). and turned to PBS's The Newshour.
Anyone who tunes in the idiotic Nancy Grace deserves what they're watching.
You perpetuate the very thing you damn. By the way, I was with Dan Rather at the Oakland(80) Freeway (not 280) collapse in 1989, and he just didn't operate the way you describe.
I don't see anything wrong,( if it was Dan, since he was, for the most part, anchoring on the street ), about asking an eyewitness what he saw and experienced in that kind of situation. That's what a reporter does.
The interesting thing now appears to be that the viewers who are still watching network coverage appear to be voting for Charles Gibson AND his team of experienced journalists and, during this latest tragic moment in America's history, by a decidedly larger margin over the other two.
It's damn hard to beat Brian Ross, and no, I haven't worked for ABC for a long time, and I don't work for Newshour right now. It's just my gut feeling that they have the best network news operations.
I usually don't respond to blogpeople who make these judgements about people in professions they know nothing about, pretending that they could do it better. If you could, you would have been out there as a journalist, probably a long time ago. Name withheld
First of all, I fear being prurient. That's why I turned it off, which "anonymous" would know had he/she read the whole piece.
Second, I don't watch Nancy Grace. To say she's idiotic is being be generous.
According to sfmuseum.com, it was 280 that collapsed. Wikipedia says it was 880. Not really relevant to the point.
Asking an eyewitness what he saw and taking advantage of a person's grief, while that person is probably in shock, in my opinion are 2 different things.
I never said I could do it better. As a viewer, however, I am entitled to make judgments about the reporting and watch or not watch based on those judgments.
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