Re: OT: Shame on you, NBC

On Sat, 21 Apr 2007 17:55:24 -0400, DonnaB shallotpeel wrote
(in article <gl1l23t25nob9asc4e541bf75r6dnmgbfb@xxxxxxx>):

In rec.arts.tv.soaps.abc on 21 Apr 2007 14:25:26 -0700 in Msg.#
<1177190726.696520.274030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Cory
<onyxcge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The media should have been FAR more selective about what they aired
and put on web pages/sites. I don't remember if it was in here that I
mentioned this or not, but there were at least two pictures that were
shown at different times on MSNBC's website. One was of Cho holding a
gun to his head. Another was of Cho pointing a gun at the camera.

Both pictures absolutely gave me the willies. The media did NOT have
to go THAT far in putting Cho's obviously disturbed mind on display,
and there is NO ONE alive who can convince me that the media DID have
to go as far as they did with these pictures.

I looked at all of the pictures that were up on the website including the
ones you mention & a few others, the one with the hammer, others with gun/s,
and one I'm thinking of but can't remember to sum up in one word, ... and I
see no problem with them being shown as news. I'm not going to try to
convince you of anything. But, in future, if you feel that way, perhaps when
you see a warning about possible content, ... maybe you don't want to look.

Violence is real & ugly. I don't want to see it 24/7 or on billboards, but
it is news & there is informational value in its presentation, especially
within context. <<

I have no problem with seeing violence -- I'm a huge fan of splatter/slasher
films, so I'm pretty well inured (and I say this not to demean actual
violence, but to make sure you are crystal clear on the fact that it isn't
squeamishness about the content that is motivating my position) -- but my
problem with _this_ stuff is that it _isn't news_. News is the fact that a
guy shot up that campus and killed 32 people. News isn't his demented
blatherings and posthumous wish to be famous/infamous. The average person on
the street isn't the person who is going to make the determination that a
person is too ill to attend university, to get a gun permit, etc. etc. They
aren't really learning anything from this. It's simply titillating.

What I think they should have done at NBC was very well expressed on this
guy's blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-case/nbc-is-dumb_b_46440.html

Scroll down to the part where he imagines what Brian Williams might have said
on the news that night.

News is the fact of what he did; a list of his victims, and their pictures;
information about mental illness, and gun control, and what was and wasn't
done in his case. What does seeing his image, holding guns, over and over,
do for anybody? It's not like he's a fugitive from justice and we all need
to be ABSOLUTELY SURE that we have his image burned into our brains just in
case we run into him on the street. And the stuff in his manifesto -- and
his plays -- and his other writings -- aren't adding to anyone's lay
knowledge of how to diagnose someone with a personality disorder. Because if
you showed those writings to _anyone_, it would be patently obviously that
they were the rantings of an extremely disturbed person. I mean, that was
the biggest DUH of all in this story. I can't believe the university didn't
attempt to intervene further, or whatever body it was that was in charge of
his apparently useless psychiatric evaluation (I'm not sure of the details
because frankly, I'm saturated by this story and not reading about it
anymore).

All the repeated exposure is doing is telling the next guy that _he'll_ be
famous too, after he kills a bunch of people.

Aisling
--
FAC Will Cortlandt
Jewelled Frango 2001

.

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