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Sara Hood
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Tammesia Green
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2007-08-19
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By Tammesia Green
Following the massacre that occurred at Virginia Tech University on April 16, many have come to question their own safety at universities across the country. The profile of a school shooter, once narrowed to a lonely white male high-school student with a fascination with and open access to guns, was quickly re-examined as we discovered the shooter to be 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui. But before the news had been released that the shooter was Asian, the question on everyone's mind was whether this catastrophe could have been prevented. This question is a good one, and should be debated, but reflecting on the length of time the press devoted to this subject was unsettling for me.
I remember going to class the morning of the shooting and hearing news reports that two people had been shot at a Virginia Tech dormitory. Upon my return five hours later I was shocked to see the death toll had escalated to 33. Immediately, I wanted to know what had happened and if the killer had been caught. Watching the news, all I could find were reporters asking questions like, "Why wasn't the school placed on lockdown? What time was the first e-mail sent to students? Why wasn't more done to prevent this tragedy?"
It became clear that I would not learn anything about what actually took place on the campus that could account for the casualty numbers rising; I had to resort to the Internet to try to make sense of all that was happening. After getting a clear account, I was upset at the amount of time the network news channels devoted to placing blame on officials at Virginia Tech—only, the "placing blame" was not seen for what it was. Instead, it was promoted as good investigative journalism.
I understand that it is the job of a journalist to ask the hard questions and uphold a level of accountability toward officials. However, I found that the questions posed by reporters in press conferences regarding Virginia Tech were not necessarily out of line, but a result of constant criticism of their inability to question authority in high-stakes situations.
Past disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the logic behind going to war with Iraq played their roles in the types of questions posed to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger. These questions were simply a ploy to preemptively avoid any backlash from the public for not addressing accountability.
Following the invasion of Iraq and never finding weapons of mass destruction, the public began to demand that journalists not be afraid to question authority and command answers from high-ranking officials. Hurricane Katrina allowed for reporters to regain some credibility by analyzing slow relief efforts and the lack of preparation from the government. It is no surprise that in order to keep credibility and uphold the public's faith in reporters, journalists continued to grow a backbone and demanded answers from those in power.
The word "accountability" is ultimately what forced the media to focus on how administrators screwed up and not the shooter. But accountability is not to be placed on school administrators and campus police when the act was really the work of one man, and only he can be blamed. Real investigative journalism would have been to expose the motives of Cho, not debate whether an e-mail should have been sent earlier or been more detailed. Even as students from the Virginia Tech campus were being interviewed and asked if their administration at the university should have done more, the look of "Are you really asking me this now?" ran across most of their faces. They, like me, could not understand why their administrators were being harassed as if they made the events unfold, and not Cho.
There is no way administrators at Virginia Tech could have predicted that a domestic dispute incident would be cause for the closing of an entire university. Anyone who thinks they would have had the notion to suspend classes and not think of the first attack as an isolated incident is thinking in the context of hindsight. Colleges enroll large quantities of students, equivalent to the population of some U.S. cities. Just like a city, Virginia Tech did not shut down when evidence of a homicide was discovered.
It is nice to want to believe that our college campuses are the last step before entering the real world, and are therefore void of the many threats society holds. But evil does exist and it knows no bounds. This evil of one individual is the only factor that should matter in evaluating who is accountable for the Virginia Tech massacre.
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Original Source:<a href=http://www.newuniversity.org/showArticle.php?id=5789>New University - April 30, 2007</a>
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eng
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New University
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Zachary Gale <newueic@gmail.com>
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Media Coverage of VT Tragedy Irresponsible
criticism
journalism
media
media coverage
university of california - irvine
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Sara Hood
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Anonymous
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2007-08-14
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By:
Posted: 4/20/07
In the time between the two horrific shootings that took place at Virgina Polytechnic Institute April 16, the killer, Cho Seung-Hui managed to mail disturbing video clips and pictures of himself to NBC News in New York. While NBC News did contact the FBI about the materials, they unveiled the disturbing images to the American people on the nightly news Wednesday. This insensitive move is representative of the mainstream media's disappointing coverage of the tragedy, and The Miami Student editorial board finds the glorification of this mass murderer appalling and offensive.
NBC News is effectively giving Cho Seung-Hui exactly what he wanted - a pulpit from which he can speak his insanities. Cho's chilling and senseless photographs only adds to the pain of the victims' friends and families and are not worth playing over and over again. In another sign of sensationalist coverage, other networks, such as CNN, aired a running gunshot tally based off of a cell phone audio clip captured by a Virginia Tech student, almost oblivious to the fact that with each shot another innocent person was being murdered.
This theatrical media coverage suggests that the lessons from Columbine have not been taken to heart. In the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting, the media covered the event with a similar circus-like attitude. Contemporary 24-hour coverage has led to poor journalism that thrives on ratings, melodrama and editorialized field reports, all of which takes away from the actual event.
Rather than these sad examples of media irresponsibility, The Miami Student editorial board feels the American public deserve staid reporting. Moreover, rather than glorifying Seung-Hui's acts, the press should focus more on the victims of his acts. For example, Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, saved his students by blocking his classroom's door with his body, sacrificing his life in the process. Stories such as this represent a sign of selfless humanity amidst the horror of the random violence.
In the end, the media coverage of the tragedy has been disrespectful toward the families and friends of the innocent victims. Just hours after their deaths, the media swarmed the college town of Blacksburg, Va. with little regard for the students and families who lived through the violent act. In many ways, the networks' theatrical coverage has helped to desensitize the American people to the horrors of the April 16 attack. The media should simply allow the tragedy to speak for itself - its horror is self-evident.
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Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.miamistudent.net/media/storage/paper776/news/2007/04/20/Editorials/Medias.Response.To.Vt.Tragedy.Warrants.Criticism-2870736.shtml>The Miami Student - April 10, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Miami Student
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"Skotzko, Stacey Nicole" <skotzksn@muohio.edu>
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Media's response to VT tragedy warrants criticism
boston university
criticism
media coverage
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Sara Hood
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Bethany Quinn
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2007-08-09
Description
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I'm from Virginia, and I know students at Va. Tech. I've been watching the irksome news coverage.
Death is always sad, but the silver lining is that it brings people together. Solidarity is why people are so compelled to tune in, and while Facebook has been great for that, the media sucked. Facebook may be prone to rumors, but you can tell who's missing and who to be concerned about.
The media, however, have been eking out widespread political implications of this tragedy, instead of bringing people together.
This event does have political ramifications, but the media has missed the mark by saying things like, in a nutshell, "He was born in a different country! Let's make this about immigration, despite the fact that most of his formative experiences were here in the US because he had lived here legally since he was eight!"
Or there's "How on earth could this psycho get a gun? Well, it was a completely mundane, legal purchase, and he bought it with 'chilling simplicity.' Let's interview the merchant and harp on gun control!"
Even on a 24-hour network, there are no gray areas in politics, so their coverage is ill-suited even for the wider audience. Gun control and free speech may be slippery slopes, but when free speech demonstrates a violent psychosis, how about a little gun control?
I hate to be blunt, but we all know the Cho type, and as individuals, we should reach out like the teacher did. As a campus policy, I'm not suggesting that loners should be branded on the forehead, but when a kid confuses fantasy and reality, expresses violent fantasies and suicidal thoughts, and finally gets sent to the counseling center while you've got him in the straightjacket, confiscate his registered guns.
Bethany Quinn
Senior and former Hurricane columnist
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Original Source:<a href=http://media.www.thehurricaneonline.com/media/storage/paper479/news/2007/04/20/Opinion/Letters.To.The.Editor-2871116.shtml>The Miami Hurricane - April 20, 2007</a>
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eng
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The Miami Hurricane
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Greg Linch <greglinch@gmail.com>
Title
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Media focus is off target
criticism
media coverage
media response
university of miami