Will it really change?

Posted on April 22nd, 2007 by Dig ad veritas

MySA.com: Disturbing images turn shooting into lesson in ethics, reporting

The mass murder at Virginia Tech, and the killer’s posthumous promotion of his deed, dominated the news last week.As an unremarkable Monday turned upside down because of events in Blacksburg, Va., newspapers everywhere scrambled to get the story. For two days, reporters stuck to journalism’s “five W’s and the H”— who, what, when, where, why and how — in crafting stories. But on the third day something extraordinary happened: A package of photos and a rambling video diatribe, mailed by the killer during a pause in his murderous activity, arrived at NBC-TV headquarters in New York.

On Thursday, nearly every U.S. newspaper, including this one, used an eerie photo of the deranged killer, brandishing two pistols, to illustrate the turn the story had taken.

As a result, about 35 readers told me, most of them thoughtfully and with civility, they were dismayed that we’d used the disturbing image on Page 1.

I wonder. This is a good piece by Bob Richter but I really wonder whether it was a lesson in ethics for the networks. If a horrific event happened tomorrow would they change the way they covered it? One of the images from Virginia Tech that burned into my mind was just a sign that said VT stay strong, Media stay away. Such a weird little thing to stick in my head, but it did because the media is a beast when a crisis happens and they trample everything they are near in the aftermath. The images and videos that the killer sent to NBC reminded me a little boy trying to act tough and we ate them up. They were everywhere and my husband and I talked about how they were giving him and his manifesto more attention than it deserved. Yes, we should look into it for clues about why he did it and how we might be able to prevent it in the future, but he made that package with gaining celebrity in mind and he got his wish. I was impressed by how quickly ABC reacted to the criticism and pulled those videos, but they don’t have a 24 hour fear channel so that might have been why their decision was so easy.

I know I haven’t talked about the massacre itself and I probably won’t on this blog because we are already inundated with opinions and my feelings and reactions don’t need to be added to the fray. Obviously, the entire country was touched by this and it will forever be in our consciousness. Three Wise Men had the best commentary I happened upon.

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Filed under: Virginia Tech

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2 Responses to “Will it really change?”

  1. University Update, on April 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 am Said:

    Will it really change?…

    …

  2. Xanthippas, on April 23rd, 2007 at 6:57 pm Said:

    Thanks for the mention.

    Honestly, it’s hard to boil the “lessons” of this incident down to anything meaningful. Sometimes we’re just left with our initial impressions, which eventually may or may not prove useful.

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