Virginia Tech Tragedy (this thread is NOT for the debate of "gun control")
 

My God!!! 32 people dead. :sad:

At least 32 dead in Virginia shooting rampage

I'm in total shock

a shame...

I can only say that I heard about this as I trawled news sites, but I had no way of picking up any broadcasts in my office at the moment. A shame because I had gotten so used to just turning the TV on during the day. I actually found the local 1010wins news station and streamed it.

Oh Jesus...



I have a whole slew of comments that could be deemed as insensitive so I'm gonna keep my fuckin' mouth shut. For now.

I know a lot of people that go to VT. here's what I've heard from them.

All are ok
1 of my friends knows 1 guy shot 3 times in the arms and legs.
another friend knows 4 people shot, 1 girl in the stomach, another twice in the arm after he tried to keep the gunman out of the classroom. one of them, an RA, died.

one of my friends lived in the dorm where the first shooting happened, and another of my friends was outside of the building when it happened, said people just came running out with gunshot wounds.

good friend of mine was supposed to be in the engineering building at 9:00 but they stopped the buses and he couldn't get there.

the cousin of my friends ex-girlfriend was killed.

what a fucking tragedy
(n i only share that information because its so insane to me that this could have easily been my friends killed.)

This is truly tragic. I can't help but think how we might have prevented or even just mitigated such disaster from happening. My condolences to the victims.

I'm still waiting for the details but my initial thought was how could someone shoot over 60 people in close quarters without someone shooting him back.

Only hours after the incident, Jack Thompson, one of the presiding douches of the United States is on Fox News talking about how video games trained the killer. Not even a tragedy like this will stop him from focusing on his own agenda.

This is just sad.

RIP.

There's another compliment thread here in General Discussion specifically for "gun control" talk on this subject, I'd invite you all to join that conversation as we keep the two debates separated. :) - analog.

To directly answer the question, I was always more concerned with how hung over or sore from a workout I was going to be in class than going there armed. I can't imagine that there are really any college students that carry on campus, when it is legal, especially a campus in a small town like VT.

It's at 33 now according to CNN. And now the 2 separate shootings may or may not be connected. The 33 includes the or a shooter.

(2 in a dorm, 31 shot at an academic building)

I have to agree there's all kinds of horrible comments that can made. Mostly I'd like to make horrible comments about the media.

edit: And now I'm listening to an anchor person on cnn basically slam the officers involved in this investigation.

double edit: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...05#post2230105

My sister was in the building next door. I woke up with a text from her saying, "Me and my friends are safe, I love you all." This was before I read the news. Thank god, because I would have been in panic mode if I hadn't received it. I called her and she's shook up. Tears all around about what could have happened. My cousin also goes to school there but he's o.k. too, thank god.

I was just listening to NPR and a student was talking about being in the building with the shooter. Apparently he was laughing after every shot. Let's hope there is a special place in hell for this sicko.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why is this front page news. Most people are just trying to further their own agenda, anyway...

You fail to see how the deadliest campus shooting in American history is front page news? How is putting this on the front page furthering anyones agenda? Perhaps the funeral homes in the region have a hidden agenda. It's just a shame that this took the place of more news on Anna Nicole Smith.

Sorry for the heated tone, but my sister was very close to death. This is one story that hits close to home for me.

Sorry, but how does this differ from a bad day in Iraq????

Most notably because the campus of Virginia Tech isn't a war zone, although this doesn't make the deaths any more or less tragic.

It is human nature to seek out blame when something this horrific occurs. I've been listening to a radio program that has set that aside in favor of discussing means of prevention. Gun policy was, of course, a part of the discussion, as were increased security measures to prevent an individual of this kind of getting on campus. I could go into detail about the suggestions considered, but the bottom line was that there are no practical solutions.

In truth, the last college campus incident of this kind was in 1966. This would suggest that our colleges are remarkable safe and I think it's important to keep this in mind when contemplating what happened today.

To be clear, I am not of the same opinion concerning our K-12 schools.

I think it is just you, and I'm thankful.

What agenda could you possibly be talking about? Is this normal drive-by-criticism gibberish or do you have something to say- some kind of point you were trying to make?

Exactly.


And the difference is... rich people died today. In Iraq, poor white people, minorities, and weird terrorists die. No one cares about them.

that is such a bullshit statement, what the heck makes you think nobody cares about the people in iraq huh? JUST because a person professes outrage and compassion for the victims DOES NOT MEAN WE DONT CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.

Pardon me for seeing the difference in people sitting unprotected in a classroom than people that volunteered to put their lives on the line by being in the military. Military people CHOOSE to join <insert branch here> knowing full well what they are getting themselves into. College students dont apply to college to be sitting fucking ducks.

Im sure any student with god knows how many years of student loan payments in their future will appreciate being called "rich"

Oh well, then... People are shot and killed every day, yet most of those stories never see the light of day because they're not 'high profile'. Somehow, I fail to see how one shooting incident is somehow more 'tragic' than another.

Apparently you haven't been watching much TV today...

edit: adding what i am responding to:

I fail to see how this has anything to do with Iraq. Tying two events together because there is death involved in both makes no sense. How does this differ from Iraq? Well, there is a WAR going on in Iraq, for one. I could continue but do I have to? I hope that we can all differentiate Iraq and Virginia Tech.

As for the comment that no one cares about Iraqis, I assume that you are basing that on your own feelings on the issue? I grieve every time I read an article about a bombing in Iraq. It saddens me that they have become so commonplace that the media has stopped reporting them.

Someone gets shot, a few people get shot- one thing.

A guy cornering 30+ people in a room and then picking them off in what's quite literally an execution-style homicide spree, is something else entirely.

WTF! It really sad when a thread about a tragedy get tromped on because we aren't minimizing it compared to a larger one or bringing up social economic issues! Death of young students is awful!

yeah, this is like saying i can't be upset because my dog got run over because sheep get slaughtered every day in africa.

i think its horrible to hear that this happened, and i wish all involved peace and recovery where possible.

I actually starting typing a reply but noticed how you put the word tragic in quotation marks. Are you that vain? Go speak with a family member of one of the victims and tell me that this wasn't tragic. Based on the logic if this post either we grieve for everyone at once or no one at all. Surely you can see the hypocrisy in such a statement.

Hmmm, I think I see an interesting divide here between those who seem to feel that they're overexposed to "tragedy" by the media and those that aren't. Those of you that are don't see this as anything all that notable while those that aren't put it in the Pantheon of Horror.

No one's right; no one's wrong. Bad things happen all day every day. Some are more horrible than other and bear noting. The most horrific thing to happen to anyone I know barely made headlines outside of Chicago or Raleigh, NC.

Tragedy, I think, is measured by the proximety of the victim to the observer. If, God forbid, Ballzor (a TFP member who's a VTU student) had been one of the victims, I think this thread would have a very different feel.

does anyone know exactly what happened yet? or are we all speculating on what we've been fed by the talking heads?

Death is common place. It happened way before you were born and it will continue to happen long after you die. Does that mean a single death is less sad? No. It just means it's something that the more you dwell on the harder it is to get past.


I was actually pointing out that people die in large groups around the world each day. And for the most part Americans only give a flying blue fuck it involves a fellow American. Selfish assholes.

Unc, what we don't know is quite a bit. The shooter didn't carry ID and didn't make any claim as to his purpose or reason. I wish the talking heads didn't feel so compelled to fill air time with suppositions.

Edit: Added quote. I need to start quoting, I'm not used to these fast moving boards.

Again, I don't understand on what you are basing these generalizations of Americans. I care, does that mean that I'm not an American? Furthermore, how many Russians (random example) are grieving for the victims here? It's hard to "give a fuck" about something that is happening thousands of miles away. The_Jazz nailed it on the head in his post when speaking of proximity.

This was my response almost verbatim when Columbine happened. I was also in high school at the time and in Colorado. You may or may not remember that Columbine happened while we were bombing the ever-living-shit out of Kosovo. I don't think I'd say it today.

On the one hand, there is truth to it. Either we value human life, or we don't. And if we do, all human life should have the same value so it only goes to show our ethnocentrism, class consciousness and racism when we make a big deal out of something closer to home.

On the other hand, we live our lives based on our experiences and, lacking our own experience, vicariously through those with whom we can best share experiences. Most Americans, myself included, have a very hard time imagining what life in Iraq is like, and, fortunately, for good reason. Many Americans have a very easy time imagining what it is or was like to be a college student and, for that reason, they're upset and scared when 31 college students get mowed down by a crazy person.

For better or for worse, there is a war going on in Iraq and, last time I checked, much of this country was against it and wants it to stop. Short of full scale revolt against our government, we're doing what we can do to make that happen. People are upset with the fact that people are dying there, but it's been going on for four years and, for purposes of information filtering, we can't report on it like we can a shooting at a college. We EXPECT casualties in a war zone, even if we don't like them. We don't expect casualties when we send ourselves, our siblings, our children to college in suburban Virginia.

I don't see what good holding that empathy over people's heads does other than give you the opportunity to have a holier-than-thou moment.

I was wondering why there were so many campus security people all over today. There was a protest, but it was a small one to have an Asian Studies class added to the curriculum. I've never seen a protest here have a squad car right next to the quad. From what I read on one news site, they were having security everywhere at every campus across the country in case of a copy cat. It's pretty scary to think that this could happen on campus.

my thoughts exactly...

Yes, deaths in Iraq are tragic and senseless. Just like these are.

Even though I know it will be seen as insensitive, I'm going to try and repeat some of what was in the shoutbox earlier. When I heard the news, my reaction was "big deal". Sure I know it's a terrible thing that happened but it doesn't really affect me.

Then, we get into how it's unreasonable to think that someone could do this to students, but it's reasonable to go in and kill people of a foreign country. Before you start back on the proximity argument and the two different instances argument, it all boils down to the same thing. It's death. Ask the troops over there what they think about it.. they'd probably consider it to be one and the same thing.

Who knows how many people die everyday in the ghettos across America. Does it make the paper? No we'd rather wonder who fathered a baby of a pill-popping money hungry slut. Then oh no! We have students that died because some fuck decided he should kill people because his girlfriend didn't give him a blowjob this morning. I find it horribly insensitive to the rest of the people who die without so much of a decent funeral much less a front story of the paper.

If you're on the sympathetic bandwagon, then perhaps more should be mentioned about the people who die every fucking day instead of just the ones that die at some school.

Actually I have talked to some soldiers today, several I know came home right before easter...Marines...their words? "I expect that over there, I dont expect that in the country I serve and our hearts should go out to their families"

Also there have been people that attend VT that had friends that are still IN Iraq call them to pass on their prayers and see how they were.

gucci, king, etc.

if you're just bitching about the media coverage, then i can understand that a bit. they broke in on jeopardy to do a press conference, and then said some jazz about "we'll be back live tomorrow morning live from the vt campus" and i think there a special night line for it, and all i thought was 'fucking great. i'm sure that's exactly what these people need right now. more fucking cameras.' but that's the way the media works. this has massive concentration of simultaneous death in an american city involving college students. i wouldn't seek learning about this incident, particularly, but if i hear about i'm going to say 'damn, that sucks. i feel awful for them' and if i hear about a bombing in iraq, i think the same thing. i just don't understand the theory of tragedy dillution due to overexposure being a useful reason to negate someone else's response to it.

I didn't put the word tragic in quotation marks to be vain, but rather to show that the VT shooting was no more 'tragic' than any other shooting which occurs nearly every day.

I HATE the fact that people act as if this is some sort of big deal which almost NEVER happens.

We think of schools as safety zones, as sanctuaries, yet things like this happen, and there is no denying the horror of it. There is no denying the horror of death, regardless of where it happens or to who, and so there is no point in pointing fingers, because as long as there is still horror in people taking human lives, it is all the same--but that it would happen in a place that we would feel safe--that is what bothers us most of all, I think. I also think we are bothered by the fact that a lot of us either went to college or are college students--and the thought that this could happen to us, at our school--my school is a LOT like VT--that worries me. That worries me a lot. If it can happen at VT...it can happen anywhere. Of course, I thought that after the Kip Kinkel shooting...if it can happen in Springfield, Oregon, it can happen anywhere--and no school is safe anymore.

so....would it be more tragic to you if it happened...say at a Monastery or a Nunnery? or would still be an "oh well some one else died" just because they were shot?

I learned about this when my professor talked about it in class earlier. He had heard that the first shooting (a guy and a girl at around 7am) at the VT dorms was due to a break up.

Whatever caused him to do it, it's sad that he couldn't talk to anyone.

OK, I see your point. I don't think anyone's saying one death is less tragic than another, however. But the sad reality is that so many people are killed every day that if we the media reported on EVERY death, that's all we'd ever talk about, and then you'd complain about that.

No matter what the medium, there is only so much space or time to fit all the day's news in. Even the newspaper can't just go off and print up a 300 page edition on a whim. That means there must be a filtration process. Part of that filtration process is looking for either something out of the ordinary (a common mantra is "dog bits man, no story, man bites dog, there's a story.") or something which effects a large portion of your viewers/readers. One guy getting killed in Philly will be reported on its local news, but it's not going to effect someone in LA, so it probably won't make it out there unless there's an unusual element to it - - and sadly there's nothing unusual anymore about one person getting murdered.

Clearly what happened today is tragic - no more or less tragic on a family-by-family basis than any other murder, although I would argue it is far more tragic to the VT community as a whole than a single murder would have been. Clearly as well what happened today is highly unusual - - in fact, a shooting on this scale has never before happened in this country, and that alone makes it news.

I mean no offense, but I reject your premise - - -it's very unusual for a murder to not get a mention in the media local to the area the murder happened in.

*sigh*

This is terrible guys, it honestly is.

Shakran, I agree with you completely. Local Murders are broadcast on local news stations. My disdain is for the people that say that this isn't important. Assuming you are from the United States, let me ask you this, Did you feel the pain, anger, frustration, during the course of events that happened Sept. 11? The only thing that those innocent people did was go to work that morning. Are you saying that event wasn't important because we need to be worried about the rest of the world's deaths? Hell, I'll even take it a step further. I don't think it was just Americans that mourned those losses. Because it was a travesty. It's not necessarily just a loss of life that makes it so close to us, but it's the loss of innocent lives. When I read about the Tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean in '04, My thoughts and prayers went out to those people. They didn't do anything to create that devastation, it was thrust upon them. Yes, we all die, but it's the opportunity to live that was taken away.

I cannot believe you who politicize an insane criminal act.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.

33 college students who were in the prime of their life and poised to finally join the ranks of the adult were randomly gunned down. This is a national tragedy, and I mourn not only for the dead and their families but also for those people posting here and elsewhere who live their lives with such cynicism and despair that they are no longer capable of empathizing with such a loss of life.

yes, death happens every day. It is true that we can't mourn for everybody, but at least some of us still have enough compassion left in us to mourn for those we can.

I don't think that this is on the news because people believe that their deaths are more or less tragic than the deaths of those in war... it's the absurdity of the situation that makes it newsworthy.

If a lion eats a tribesman in the middle of the Serengeti, it's not newsworthy. If a lion eats a soccer mom in the middle of the supermarket, it's going to be all over friggin the news... not because of the social standing or the bank account of the victim, but because of the setting. No one expects Linda to get eaten while picking out her Pop-Tarts.

Deaths in Iraq are not as newsworthy because it is expected in wartime that there will be casualties. It doesn't make their deaths any less tragic, just less sensational.

So, I need to add my statement.

Iraq - yes dangerous. its a war zone and people die. But you do need to factor in that these people (the americans at least)willingly signed up . <b>They were told they could die, and they are in the act of killing others as well. It sucks, but there is an undeniable risk to being in the military</b>.

However, these students and kids, well they didnt have a gun in their hands to fight back. They didn't have protective gear and they were not in a situation where they knew they could be hurt or killed.<u> They were fucking fish in a barrel</u>. Is this like Iraq? No, so stop comparing it. This is not apples to apples here.

It is tragic. We are not at war on our turf. There are many of us on this forum who are kids in college trying to learn to make a difference in hopes that neither random acts of violence or ridiculous wars do not continue on anyone's turf. We are rich and poor alike... although the numbers are different, we are still similar. We bleed the same and we still have many who mourn for us.

I truly thank you for putting this in perspective and in such a simple 'for-instance' scenario. This is exactly how one should approach the tragedy that occurred today. Not in the full scope of killings and deaths that happen worldwide, but in the sense that here, and now, there were 30+ innocent members of an institution of higher learning, yet more importantly, members of society at large, that were murdered in a hail of gunfire.

Killing is senseless, yet to deny that very statement because the media and societies in question decide to selectively report on what would be the most relevant to its target audience is ludicrous. This is only a mere effort to inform us, the general public, that death and slayings are not a commonplace. Or at the very least, they shouldn't be. If one chooses to disegard what happened today at VATech as just another incident, then that individual has become all too jaded by the way the world works. That is what I deem to be tragic.

this thread should be closed with this post moved to the top. anyone who wants to try to argue against this. You are, In Fact, wrong.. and you're a communist.

Oh noes!! The Communists are coming! The Communists are coming!! :rolleyes:


You know, as I was watching some TV last night and every channel had something on about this tragedy.. I wonder if the same media coverage would have been given to an event like this if it took place in an inner city school. I think we'd just have a 5 minute clip about it and then "in other news.."

For anyone who says that the kids were fish in a barrel, or that troops oversees expect to be killed etc, since when was America so fucking safe that you didn't have to watch your back?? Maybe you people should have grown up where I grew up. The America I grew up in must be alot different.

You can live in the city with the lowest crime rate but that doesn't mean you're safe. So in my eyes, to call this a tragedy, and overlook all the other issues that abound is an even bigger tragedy.

Exactly what I was thinking. I find that whenever something happens in a 'safe' area, it's a tragedy. No where is safe, we should have learned that in 1999 or before. There are much bigger issues occurring in the country and the world. However, instead of dealing with the tougher issues, it's easier to be somber and discuss an issue like this where the problem committed suicide.

I've worked on two different college campuses since 9/11. On both campuses, we were REQUIRED by Homeland Security to have security measures planned and documented for inspection. When I hear the VaTech president talk about how they had a meeting to determine HOW they were going to notify students, I just scream! That stuff has ALREADY BEEN decided and you're supposed to automatically throw into motion the procedures.

Believe me, school campuses all over the country have spent the past 5 years tuning and fine-tuning emergency procedures, so their official non-reaction to the first incident just seems totally ridiculous to me.

Until you mentioned this, it never occurred to me. Now that you have, I can't believe it! It's so blindingly obvious that there would be these procedures in place, if for no other reason than to deal with another 9/11-type situation. There should have been a big manual with a list of responsibilities and a chain of command.

I don't necessarily believe that the school dropped the ball in not cancelling classes and locking down campus after the dorm shooting because no one could have anticipated what was going to come next, but if the above is true, they did drop it on getting the news out and communicating with everyone.

Wouldn't you want to presume the worst? Take all the precautions, necessary or not?

When this happens again, I bet the future protocol of every school and college for this type of situation will be to cancel classes and shut down the school.

I think this is true. But frankly, I blame our post-9/11 "news" pageantry. It's obscene. I don't watch any of it anymore.

note: I realize that the news was obnoxious before, but since 9/11 it has kicked into ultra-emotional pornographic mode. The entire concept and its relation to commerce is a travesty.

That's my opinion anyway.

...and also, don't you ever get the feeling that the news media are always trying to recapture those "glory days" after 9/11?

...doesn't that make you kind of sick?

And I'm not trying to be mean and suggest that people in the media weren't devastated by 9/11...just that that "ching, ching" sound is a nice background noise to have during times of tragedy.

You know, I live in Iceland. I don't watch TV, and even if I did, I wouldn't know what they were saying about this... American news doesn't usually make it to prime-time or the front page, simply because they have their own tragedies here.

But I picked up the paper this morning and VT had made the front page. This is a big deal, even in a country where few people give a shit about what happens in America. These lives were NOT more important than what is happening in Iraq or anywhere else in the world. But the way in which these people died, not as soldiers but as students and professors sitting in a classroom, is what makes this kind of story into front page news. It is human interest. If this happened in ANY country, with any kind of media, it would be on the front page, no matter how many other people faced natural mortality or were shot in Iraq that day. Those are, for good or bad, "acceptable" ways for people to die.

This VT shooting was NOT a normal way or time for a group of people to die. Why is it so difficult for some of you to just have some friggin' empathy for the situation?

Uh. No. We're not. We don't EVER want to have to cover something like that again. We don't EVER want to cover a shooting again. Do you have any idea what it means to the news crew when even one person gets murdered? They actually make us go up to the family that just found out their loved one was killed, and we have to talk to them. We hate it. Every single journalist out there absolutely HATES talking to victims relatives. We'd much rather cover politics or even some feature story.

The only glory part of that tragedy was that journalists, for once, were allowed to do what we're here to do - inform the public of the issues no matter what the cost, and without having to report bullshit like Anna Nichole. Of course that glory part was tarnished quite a bit for those of us that realized that 9/11 happened BECAUSE the media failed to inform the public of the growing danger from bin Laden and BECAUSE during the Clinton administration the media focused on a blowjob instead of the real issues.

Yeah, pretty sickening that people think that we cheer at a mass tragedy.

Too bad none of us heard that. We lost money, BIGtime on 9/11. I'm not just talking about the transmitters that all of NYC broadcasters lost - although that's a few mil right there. But whenever you see us go wall to wall coverage - CNN did it for more than 24 hours, as did MSNBC, and even many locals went wall to wall for most of the day - we're losing shitloads of money. Wall to wall coverage = no ads, and no ads = no money coming in. Add to that the fact that we had to spend a crapload of money just logistically covering the story, and it all winds up being a big financial hit for us. But we did it anyway because the people needed to know what was going on. Heck CBS even produced a 2 hour 9/11 special a few weeks after the towers fell, and ran it with no ads. I was surprised and impressed by that - they didn't make any money doing that, yet they did it anyway.

Some of you guys don't seem to understand how much it costs to do even the crappy job that modern journalism does. Any time you see footage from a helicopter, it cost $1,000 just to start the engine on the bird, not to mention the fact that the helicopter itself was a million plus. Any time you see video of something that happened outside of the area the broadcast is happening, it was a few hundred for satellite time - and half a million minimum for the truck. Even local liveshots are done out of a $250,000 van.

Then with that wall to wall coverage there was massive amounts of overtime being paid out.

The average midmarket station easily goes through 1-2 THOUSAND dollars a week just in gas.

In short, if the ads aren't playing, we're taking huge financial losses, so if you think 9/11 was awesome for us on a monetary basis, think again.

I guarantee you that on every single campus in the US receiving federal money (from pre-school all the way to graduate school) there IS such a manual.

^^ Thanks, shakran. I find it very interesting, and actually comforting, to know these things about the other side of the media. I appreciate this, and I am glad to know you all don't want to be interviewing victims either... seems a shift in management wouldn't be a bad thing.

Back on topic, I think abaya's spot on, along with a few others here - look, I'm not exactly all torn up about this, it's too removed from my life. However, I do see it as a senseless, regrettable tragedy. I'm sorry for those families and students that now have serious fear introduced into their lives. And it is all about context and how numb we are. Gangbangers shooting each other? Mundane, occurs daily. Still a tragedy but overexposure has lost us the ability to react daily. Random, unexpected shooting of 33 people? Yeah, that's shocking. Context, people. Look it up.

That said.... there's a lot of shit we should be more upset about, all across the board. No doubt. As poppinjay once quoted...
"I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip." -Lydia Millet

Then why do you do it?

Do you think we need to hear people to speak about their recently dead loved ones?

You have your perspective. I have mine. If that's no concern of yours, so be it.

And if you're going to try and tell someone that the news media is not in the business of making money and that the coverage of "big news" doesn't bring in more money then you might want to find someone else.

Yes, 9/11 affected us all and perhaps that was a bad analogy (which I tried to make up for with my latter comment), but in most "breaking news" situations, where what is being covered does not directly affect the dissemination of news, it is "opportunity" for news coverage.

I'm sorry that they make you interview people in mourning. But, just remind yourself, when you're talking to me about it, that you're not doing it for me.

I just dug through my e-mails for this semester, and here is the latest one we received for campus emergency procedures. Although it is dated Feb. 19, we get a similar update once a year as our procedures are constantly being refined. I altered some of the wording to keep us anonymous, and please pay particular notice to the highlighted areas. Notice that our lock-down procedure is not new, but is in the process of improvement.

This e-mail is by no means unique. Every campus in the US goes through similar procedures every year.

So I just don't understand their ignorance at Va Tech about emergency response.

Because you watch it. I don't like it either.

No.


OK. Then you tell me how we made money off of 9/11 when we didn't sell ANY ads during the wall to wall coverage of it.

I won't argue with that. I'll go further to say that most breaking news isn't breaking news, but rather another lame attempt to convince the viewer to watch - -one that I personally think the viewer sees through.


No, I'm not. But remember when you blast the entire media that your stereotypes do not apply to all of us.

No. I don't.

Ditto.


I already admitted that 9/11 was a bad analogy. Just every other "big news" event but 9/11, okay?

I don't want to butt heads with you again, shakran. But just like you, I don't mouth off and say the things I do unless it is something I truly care about. I DO NOT like to argue. Sometimes we just have to live with the fact that people have differing opinions, even if it's just for the sake of preserving our own sanity. :)

Damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit!

My prayers (such as they are) are with the innocent victims and their families.
The gunman's motives, unclear, were still evil.

That's not strictly true. I've worked in the administration of two schools (yes, both were federal aid recipients) and saw no such information or plans at either - and I worked in a department that would HAVE to know the policies and procedures. I think the reality is that a lot of schools are woefully unprepared for emergencies. This was something that made me quite anxious until I left.

I'm not saying that the schools shouldn't have these plans ready for execution or that they aren't required by law - just that some don't.

EDIT: Also, I'm rereading that email. I wish that we had things like that at the schools where I worked. However, from the email, it appears that the lockdown alarm at your institution would have been new. I'm sure you have information that is more accurate, having actually worked there.

Right, because the victims of Katrina didn't get any news coverage or support. :rolleyes:

Just because tragedy takes place in a low-income or inner city area, doesn't make the public care any less about them. (Just GW :) ) Same concept that took out hours of the medias time, not just a five minute clip.

Come on, man. It doesn't matter where you grow up, unexpected things can happen every day. I just I wonder if you would trivialize 9/11 or Katrina or even the soldiers dying Iraq, the way that you do the VT shootings.

Sure they got coverage.. plenty of it. That doesn't mean that if this same scenario took place in an inner city school it would get the same coverage. Natural disasters are quite a bit different than some loser who decides to shoot some kids.

I'd bet money that you'd see very little of it. Hell we don't see much about the ghetto shootings that happen?? Why?? It happens everyday right? So we're used to it.. it's normal by now. :rolleyes:




Look I don't really care about people dying. I don't care that it happened. All I'm trying to say is that if you want to call something a tragedy, then perhaps you (you being everyone) should really look at the tragedies that are rampant in the country and the world. Don't call one "random" act of shooting a tragedy, yet simply pretend and become numb to all the shootings that occur every fucking day.

I care about people dying. I call it a tragedy. And I call all of mankind's ridiculous violent escapades tragedies.

So there. ;)

to me that statement is a tragedy

would you be as uncaring if any of these people had been your family?

I am trying to make a vital point here.

Blah... Blah... Blah...


I'm so annoyed with this...


In fact. I was annoyed with this pretty much five seconds after I found out about it.



When someone actually has something constructive to say or do about things like this then I'll start paying attention again. But for now I'm gonna ignore the pointless dribble coming out of people.


Oh wait... nothing will ever be done about things like this. Cause there isn't anything. Humans are violent by nature and they always will be. As long as we are still human, we will continue to kill each other. And I don't see us stop being human any time soon.

I wont disagree with the fact people are violent by nature. But to lose hope that good will prevail is almost as bad.

It's funny you'd say that the way you said it, king. It seems like you wrote something that could be considered pointless and annoying about how pointless and annoying you're finding the things other people are writing. Is this some sort of attempt at sardonic irony, or do you really have nothing better to do than complain about people talking about this?

When tragic shit happens, one of the ways that people deal with it is to talk about it. Even if to you it seems like what they are saying is pointless and annoying, to them it can be a valuable way of dealing with and making sense of what has happened. Communication can be therapeutic.

So please stop trying to claim that discussion of the current matter is pointless, because for a lot of people it actually isn't.

Yet the vast majority of humans never come close to killing another human.

So humans aren't really terribly violent by nature, I don't think. We do, however, have a number of defective people living within our societies.

Yes I would be as uncaring. I've had family members die. I didn't cry, I didn't feel hopeless, I didn't feel sorry for anyone. It's a fact of life. One that I'm not scared of and one that I'm not going to waste feelings on because it happens every day.

I was grossly unclear there, and for that I apologize. I meant the generic "you the viewer," not YOU specifically. Unfortunately, most viewers aren't as enlightened as you are, and they DO watch that crap.


Again, it's going to depend on the news event. We don't make as much money off of big news as you think. We can't charge any more for advertising - it's not like the advertisers give a damn WHAT we're showing, just how many eyeballs we pull in. Big news requires lots of setup, special equipment, and often rentals. We make quite a bit more money doing those bullshit health stories, or those craptacular "it's warm out today!" stories than we make when we have to cover something big.

I'm cool with you "mouthing off" as you said (I don't think of it that way) on whatever you want, but if I see something inaccurate, I will step in and point it out. An opinion formed on faulty facts is not a good opinion.

I think for colleges one of the problems with having a campus safety plan is the sheer size of the operation. At my university, there are over a hundred buildings on campus and each one has to have an evacuation plan. Good luck on getting all of the students (over 20,000 of them) to learn it for each building they have classes in. Colleges also don't drill students on evacuations or emergency procedures the way other schools do. I guess they figure that by the time we're adults we should know what to do in certain situations, but the POINT of emergency plans is to have a clear procedure to follow so that when push comes to shove people don't panic--because even adults panic, and to assume we can handle ourselves in an emergency situation is pushing it, I think.

By contrast, every school I've ever worked at, every school district I've worked for has had a clear emergency plan for every campus and every situation. The last high school I worked at had a handbook and a quick-flip guide for teachers to keep in their desks. They practice fire drills once a month and earthquake drills every quarter. My university has no such thing, but I am glad to say the president has already drafted a response to the VT tragedy, and I'm quite sure campus safety, Oregon State Police, and the administration will be working together to make my campus safer in the future, for future students.

Fine. I will take you assertion as an insider that tv news doesn't exploit tragedy for money. But (significantly) they exploit it, and for whatever reason it is that they do so, I am opposed to it.

I think it would be a good idea for the admins to keep this thread handy to give to the FBI when one of the posters here does something similar. Because they are either starved for attention and trolling with macho bravado bullshit, or they are sociopathic timebombs. Cho Seung-Hui held the same amoral, "anti-rich" views as those expressed here. And I'd be willing to bet money that there are similar posts by Cho out there on a board/blog/chatroom.

Who are you referring to exactly?

I'll be the first to say that I may or may not be a sociopathic time bomb.

Yes because everyone that is starved for attention or who think that the balance in this country is appalling is just going to go on a rampage :rolleyes:

I have yet to see any trolling in this thread. All is see is differing opinions and the call to be more open about what defines a tragedy. The only close to trolling in this thread.. is.. your post.

Well why the heck not? Because apparently mass murder (or any murder) is no big deal, and if somebody (especially rich white people) piss a person off, then it should be no big tragedy if someone does go on a rampage. With no care for the taking of human lives, then a homicidal rampage would equate to a trip to Starbuckss.

When there are people that have posted that they have friends/relatives that go to VT and then someone posts for them to basically "get over it" and that it's "annoying" that some people got shot, doesn't seem like the call for anything but a dig at an open wound.

Since most of us TFP'rs are going to hell anyways, hows about we set a date and time to pay ol Cho a visit. Figure I can stomp a pineapple through a garden hose

You wanna dig at an open wound?

For the past seven years I've had to deal with Columbine. And not like the rest of the country that only had to deal with it while it was on the news but EVERY FUCKING DAY. Do you understand that? Not just when the news decides it cares about it but every time I see friends. See a car with a faded "We Are Columbine" sticker. Drive by the school. Watch high school sports. And simply realize that I live in Colorado.


Now, I know that I'm the guy that doesn't have emotion. I don't give a flying fuck. I can't. The moment I dwell on death. Friends, family, kids, adults, students, teachers... rich, poor, Asian, white, black, retarded, straight, gay...


That's the moment I lose it and seeing as how I've already stated that I may or may not be a sociopathic time bomb...


Read the signature.

yeah, i have the same problem living in Lower Manhattan... everywhere is 9-11.

:salute:

oops, wrong thread i think

That's true. The first day I went without a conversation about that was May 26th, 2002.
I still haven't gone a week.

Well, I'm not even in New York, but I live near one of the busiest airports in the world...a lot of the time I don't even notice the airplanes, but when I do, it always reminds me. I don't know if I'll ever go a week without thinking about it. I can't imagine what it's like for you guys.

Well there's no doubt that those of us from Virginia will be remembering this for a long time...Thankfully everyone I know from Tech is fine.

It'll be interesting to see how Tech's admissions turn out, especially with this being in the midst of it. Everyone I've talked to who's mentioned the subject believes that admissions will suffer. The Morva incident from earlier in the year doesn't help their reputation either...

In a nutshell... Shit happens. I don't see why people are so keen on dwelling on the past.

Anywho... I really wish the media would stop making this out to be some insanely tragic incident when it's not. That's what annoys me the most.

Don't watch....don't watch! :p

Seriously though....

I do think that the people *running* the media are seeing an opportunity here that isn't just an altruistic "let's report on this for the good of the people" thing... however, like shakran said, they wouldn't do this if we didn't watch. And so partially for that reason... I don't watch. I don't watch anything on ANS either (ick). I prefer not to be nauseous the whole day.

I recognize that is a negative thing for all involved. However, just like with 9-11, I really only appreciate the abstract aspects of it.... and I *live* in NYC, and have since before all that happened.
I'm sorry it happened. What's for breakfast?
/going to hell

move over, you're hogging the seat.

One of the best benefits of TIVO. I don't have to watch this stuff over and over again. I don't even have to see the news teasers. In fact, it's funny to watch Boston Legal in the summer time, and see a teaser for WinterSnowStorm 2006.

Though I do get my news online, even that I have learned to become more selective of what I read.

I don't need to "know" all about this asshole that did this. I don't need to know that he had cheerios that morning. No the person isn't deserving of my time. In my world he doesn't get his 15 minutes. In fact, I can't even tell you his name, and I'm trying to keep it that way.

Im curious, if this doesnt qualify as "insanely tragic", because the guy was def insane and the event is certainly tragic.....what does?

well, maybe he was just tragically insane?

edit: i'd also just like to take a second and throw my boy shakran some props for representing the media side in this thread. whether you like it or not, the media serves a purpose, and they simply have to report on something of this nature. its a necessary function in our society. everything else about the desensitization and relative tragicality (new word, piggy style) etc is just subjective reactions we have to it. including this post, you know?

Just for the record, I want everyone to know that I apologized to shakran last night for being obtuse and reactive.

Still the gist of my feelings about the news, 24-hour news networks in particular, is the same. Yes, we need the media to tell us the news. We do not need the media to recycle sound bites and bits of video over and over and over for our consumption. We do not need to know every particular about this man's life. We DO NOT need to be watching the memorial service for these people. We do not need to be hawking over these people's lives like it's something that affects us directly. It's like a nationwide form of gossiping.

yeah, think that's an interesting point mixed. my tendency is to agree with you, but with increased ability to communicate, i wonder if its not simply inevitable. or perhaps we'll learn to monitor ourselves because we'll have to? it would be interesting if our technology pushed so far that we had no choice other than to put the limits in ourselves. stop watching, etc. many in this thread already do that, but i mean en masse as a populace.

and just in case it wasn't clear, my above comment wasn't directed at your or anyone else. i just appreciate skakran for stepping up and representing the media side of the equation.

Absolutely. :thumbsup:
I've learned quite a bit from his insider's viewpoint. And not just on this thread, either. He's kinda handy to have around like that. ;)

You'll find, I think, that that's one of the best things about the TFP. The broad range of knowledge and experience. There is usually someone around, that can give you the views from the other side of the river. Keep an open mind, and it can really open your eyes.

Now...back to the thread. I've been reading this thread for a couple of days now. And...I can empathize with both points of view. What I mean is, this is a tragedy. No if's and's or but's about it. A lot of people died in a short amount of time, in an environment that was...unexpected. Deaths in Iraq are, in their own right, a tragedy in and of themselves. But, they are not comparable. The environments are to dissimilar. Every day, people are killed in street violence. This too, while still a tragedy, is a tragedy of a different sort. These are the "mean streets" of our urban centers, and again...are not comparable. I would urge that we not attempt to minimize one, in an attempt to bolster the other. The tragedy is there. That tragedy is not added to, nor is it subtracted from, the fact that the majority of the victims were from well to do caucasion families. If you choose not to see it, then that is, in the end, your business. Let people grieve.
But...while we mourn for the victims of Virginia Tech, don't forget about those that mourn the loss of thier own loved ones...many half a world away from home.

This thread does, however, remind me of all the attention that is given to missing blonde haired, blue eyed, pretty little white girls, from affluent families, when there are countless other missing children, from families of lesser means, that get next to no attention at all. That is comparable. But...not for this thread.

**Parts of shakran's post are missing because I suck - mixedmedia**

**Fortunately it was still in my browser history, it's restored. No worries ;) --Shakran**

And I want everyone to know that I told you I step in and speak up when I think people are wrong, so I'm speaking up again. You weren't obtuse. I told you in PM's that the media has brought a lot of the ire toward it on itself. We should not breathlessly declare every damn thing to be breaking news, or action news now, or whatever other dumbassed buzzwords our consultants come up with this month. We should concentrate on telling you ISSUES and things that are important to YOU, not stupid crap. I can't tell you how many times even my station (which is far better than most) has nixed doing an important story about an issue that will effect everyone that watches us, in favor of "hey it's raining really hard and sometimes when it rains streets flood" type stories. I'm no defender of the media - just the people in the trenches who see its possibilities and are working to realize that potential. Unfortunately it's an uphill struggle because our bosses see only dollar signs, and hold no illusions of an altruistic service to their fellow citizens. Until you the viewer demands better, it's not going to get any better. Let's be honest - you watch that crap we do. You watch Dateline's "to catch a predator" even though it's not news, they're trying to make news, and in fact are violating some of the most basic ethical principals of journalism by getting involved with it. You watch crap like Cops and Fear Factor - why shouldn't my bosses think you want more of that when you watch the news? Help us out here everyone - tell them what I firmly believe to be true - that you want good news that covers the issues that effect you.


CNN was a great idea. Unfortunately it's lost its way. CNN and the other cablenets need to model themselves after NPR. Rather than breathlessly repeating the headlines all day, or taking us to live coverage of some idiot police chase in California or Texas, they need to do what NPR does. Give us the news at the top of the hour, and then discuss issues that matter to us.

Some of 'em are sort of doing that - even Fox "News" Channel has issue-oriented discussion shows, but they're going about it backwards. The presenter should not be the focus of these shows. NPR does this right - the presenter gets both (or more) sides together and facilitates a discussion between them without interjecting his own opinion. Bill O'Reilly could learn a lot from that if he'd just go through with that rectal-cranial inversion therapy he so desperately needs.

Infinite_Loser, I disagree with you that this is not tragic. It's tragic not only because 32 people were killed needlessly, but because it's another chip away at our national innocence. Colleges are supposed to be safe places. You're supposed to go there to learn, not to get slaughtered. It's a tragedy that we can't think that way anymore, just as 9/11 was a tragedy in part because we no longer could think we were immune to the turmoils of the rest of the world.

I don't have a problem with them covering the memorial service - it can be cathartic to people who are shocked, saddened, and mourning over this event, yet who cannot for whatever reason be at the memorial themselves. To people who don't need that catharsis, well, they don't have to watch.

I have covered enough funerals (especially lately with the soldier deaths) and have gotten enough viewer mail in response to it to know that people who can't make it to services like this appreciate and I will go so far as to say even NEED us to bring them there through their TV set.

I also disagree that we don't need to know as much about this man as possible. Only by understanding who he was and why he did it can we hope to prevent such an event in the future. We cannot close our eyes and ears to his obvious pain and/or derangement just because we're angry with him.

Let's think about this folks. This man killed 31 people before shooting himself. We obviously can't physically prevent this - we can't lock the entire population of the country up in strait jackets to prevent someone from going berserk. Only if we understand the factors leading up to such a crime can we hope to prevent it. Our motive for knowing what we can about him is not, or at least should not be, prurient interest in the deranged, but passionate interest in self preservation.

OOPSY, LET ME FIX THIS!!

shakran, I'm afraid I flucked up your post, but I'm going to see if I can fix it, I'm so sorry.

Well, shall I be so bold as to suggest that people would not be so shocked, saddened and mourning if they weren't immersed in the coverage of this story. And let's not equate this with being insensitive, please. I don't think I am insensitive. In fact, I can speculate, that if it were one of my children who died at VT that day, I would be distressed and demoralized at the spectacle being made of it. I haven't watched a single second of tv news coverage of this incident, but I know what is happening. Because I used to be one of those people glued to the tv, watching them repeat the same information again and again, waiting for the next "breaking" tidbit of information.

If you take a break from watching CNN or FOX or any other 24 hour news network for six months and then go back and watch it again with fresh eyes, you'll be surprised at how distasteful it seems to you. I can almost guarantee it.

I think this is a little different. Especially considering that we get next to no news coverage about the deaths of our military personnel in Iraq and those who are thankful to see it, probably have to go out of their way to find out anything about them at all.

I don't think it's closing our eyes to it. The average citizen out there is not a criminal profiler. The people to whom the information is truly useful will get it. Everyone else is just ogling.

I agree, but I don't think the average citizen should be taking it on themselves to decipher personalities and decide whether someone is a danger or not. That's a pretty slippery slope in my mind.