Okay, boys and girls - so what have we learned this week? Well, first of all, if this Cho guy had lost his mind a week earlier, Don Imus would still have a job. Okay, stop booing and hissing at me, I know it sounds cold, but it's true. Because this VT thing has really taken over the airwaves.
Of course, I think it's awful. I feel terrible for that school, and those kids and their families. I feel terrible for Cho's family. It's a horrible tragedy. But do we really need the media to interview 1,000 different people just so we can see them all cry? I think it's a bit ridiculous. I hate how reporters ask people things like "How did it feel to watch your friend bleed to death and not be able to help her?" or "Have you broken down yet? Have you cried?" (Often asked of people who are crying at the time). It is just insane. It's not news, it's not entertainment, and it serves no greater good. These people are all very upset, scared, guilt-ridden and angry. Each person involved will feel a combination of those emotions in different amounts and different intervals for a long time. I don't need to hear them describe it over and over again. It makes it worse for them, and if this nation is desparate to feed off the misery of others, then let them go volunteer at a hospice or join the military. But can you imagine not even being able to turn on the TV without seeing something about your child's death on the news? They deserve to grieve in private now. Turn the cameras off.
One final note, nothing disgusted me more than the picture of cops/EMTs carrying a bloody body out of a building by its limbs. I couldn't tell if the person was alive or dead. I now know he was, and is, alive. Why did they carry him like that? Why wasn't he on a stretcher? Why couldn't they put their arms under his body and carry him like a board, rather than by his wrists and ankles? I can't imagine his parents seeing that picture. What if they didn't know how he was yet when they saw it? What if his mother recognized his clothing and thought her son's dead body was being carried out like a deer carcass? The woman could have had a nervous breakdown. We never needed to see that picture. I felt the same way about the buckets of body parts at the WTC on 9/11. What if someone recognized a wrist watch as they saw an arm going into that bucket? Some things are news, some are entertainment, others are just superfluous gore. I am all for free press and no censorship, but I am also for dignity and common sense. I think the media may need a refresher course in those things.
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While looking at cnn.com, there is no need for me to see pictures of bloody bodies. That should not be on the front page. If people would like to see those specific pictures, then maybe under a different link stating, disturbing pictures, but certainly not on the front page.
I do agree that the families should be able to grieve alone. No need for them to be asked, how are you doing? What kind of person was your child? This whole situation is sad, horrific, and disturbing. Leave the victim's families alone in their time of mourning.
This is why you should stop watching tv news or cnn.com--the moronic-ness and tastelessness of the news media is pretty out of control there. R made me shut up when we were eating at a place that morning (before anyone knew anything) when I was reading the closed captioning--the news anchors were asking some washed up homicide investigator about "professional assassins". As if James Bond were on the loose.
Anywho, it is sad--the German instructor was from HC, and my mom taught him in middle school. I keep reading the news and wondering how his parents and family would feel about reading that.
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