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Fear and Loathing on Television

by The Blogging Curmudgeon
Fri Apr 20th, 2007 at 03:29:13 AM EST

Oh, the national American media.

Can't investigate massive electoral fraud.

Can't investigate the big corporations and their rape of the environment.

But oh, can they air a sensational video made by a mass murderer--thus victimizing the survivors of his massacre and the families of the victims all over again.

No, I won't post the disgraceful video Cho Seung-Hui made and the mailed while in the middle of his killing spree...but I guess my natural reticence to air something so disgusting and gruesome disqualifies me to be a member of the esteemed Fourth Estate.

The hypocrites are out in force, of course--including Curmudgette on MyLeftWing, whose sensitivity to online threats and real world violence against women apparently doesn't extend to the pain of the survivors and families of the victims.

(CNN) -- Angry students, faculty and loved ones urged the media to focus on the 32 victims of Monday's shootings on the Virginia Tech campus, not the twisted words and images of the man who gunned them down.
Peter Read, father of victim Mary Read, pleaded for media outlets to stop broadcasting the images that Cho Seung-Hui mailed on the day of the shooting.
"It's a second assault on us," he said. "It's a second assault on our children. Please put the focus back where it belongs: on these wonderful, vibrant, young human beings who were bringing so much to this world."
"It's made victims out of many of us a second time," Virginia Tech professor Richard Shyrock said on CNN amid a plea for the network to reconsider its decision to air the photographs and rambling, angry videos.
The package was mailed after two people were killed at a dormitory early Monday and before Cho entered the university's Norris Hall and exacted the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
NBC broadcast some of the angry images and video clips from the package and other media outlets -- including CNN -- quickly followed suit.
Doctoral student Ken Stanton, 29, said he resented that Cho was getting airtime while many of the victims, such as his friend, Jeremy Herbstritt, remained anonymous.
"I'm sick of it," he said. "It's like you can't get away from it -- every time I walk by a TV, there it is."

CNN Story

A list of Cho's victims can be found here.

Please visit my revived blog at The Blogging Curmudgeon

Poll

Votes: 9
Results	\|	Other Polls

Fear and Loathing on Television | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

It only exists (none / 0)

as a mechanism designed to mold and shape society in the way global corporate assholes want it shaped.
Already the "hatter" sites are trying to discover who set up the VA shootings. These people did in fact warn about this type of event as "on the schedule", and here we are.
Most will think it just happened but in a manufactured and planned event, I mean a program in which all of the prescribed and desired policy/law and opinion points come out perfectly in a "random" event. Statistically unlikely.
Hundreds get killed every day in Iraq, but then again those people aren't "ours". Our people need their talking points of the day, the hour, the minute and our people need them to be geared toward the intelligence level of a twelve year old.

by Lasthorseman (Lasthorseman@comcast.net) on Fri Apr 20th, 2007 at 07:42:20 AM EST

Poll results so far (none / 1)

Show 75% against showing the Mass Murderer Video, ever (although it's too late for that).

Here's what I want to ask: if we all oppose those awful blog posts in which Kathy Sierra's life and safety was threatened by some sick individuals, then on what basis can we endorse showing the Mass Murderer Video?

The public's right to know? Know what? That Cho was a psychotic who was bent on killing a bunch of people who never did a damned thing to him?

I was already aware of that, thanks.

The American media should be ashamed of itself, not only for this, but for so many things. The only thing American television is good for any more is pushing products at us, peddling pro-corporate, pro-war propaganda, and telling us about the latest celebrity feud (Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump are STILL fighting...civilization is coming to an end!).

That's why I don't have cable and don't watch television at all.

When did I stop?

January, 2001. Bush Junior's inauguration was the last thing I watched on television. Doesn't look like I'll be hooking up cable or satellite any time soon.

Visit me at The Blogging Curmudgeon

by The Blogging Curmudgeon on Fri Apr 20th, 2007 at 11:36:40 AM EST

Fear and Loathing on Television | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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