The Virginia Tech tragedy is playing itself out in a way that is showing us exactly what kind of media we have at our putative service. All the cable news networks have been wall-to-wall covering the killings. Newspapers and radio are giving the story feature status with long-winded explainers as to why and how the shooter did what he did.
Yes, it is the biggest shooting in American history. Yes, the victims were almost all young people in the prime of their lives. Yes, it looks like the shooter went nuts after a love affair went sour, combined with some very serious pre-existing issues. Yes, we do not have the full story or the results of a comprehensive investigation and yes, the media are speculating like mad.
Those are all things we knew in the first four hours. Nothing new has been added except some ‘stories of individual bravery and sacrifice’ along with photos of as many of dead as the media can find, preferably from Facebook, or LimeWire. Naturally, President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy showed up for the press conference to help console the various families and students and he should have, so I’m not going to nail him for it.
Let us have some perspective here. Thirty-two people killed in a violent, bloody way. This sounds like, well, Baghdad on a busy day. Or Darfur during a shift change. For those killings, of the same or worse scale, the media limits itself of a line or two.
The rationale for marginalizing the same kind of tragedies elsewhere is what? That the victims elsewhere are less valued? It is ‘away from here’ so it doesn’t really count? It’s just a bunch of crazy tribal folks settling scores? We got no pictures and no uplink?
If the importance of the story is predicated on good satellite truck bandwidth, then Virginia Tech is this weeks’ circus. Next week? A newborn racoon in Newark is being nursed by a Rotweiller in the backyard of a Convent. Plus, Knut the polar bear cub is having his first live salmon for lunch.
Family and friends of victims cry the same tears worldwide, not just in Virginia. I’m turning off the TV for a couple more days.
RoadDave 
The coverage sickened me. Ambualnce chasers we have become. I also thought of Baghdad and the daily murders and deaths right here in Houston. We had 8 over the weekend. Half were mentally ill who were killed or the killers. Nobody knows and nobody cares. We no longer think for ourselves and just watch the tube to do our thinkking for us. 1984 Orwell is upon us….