NBC Sure Does Suck
The good news is, though, they seem to listen.
Take the Don Imus nonsense. Never was a fan of the Grump Man and never understood why so many talented and influential people graced him with their presence. His jokes were stale, humor offensive. Plus he has the face of a deflated tire.
So not hot.
After years of slurs against women and black people, NBC got an earful from their own employees, along with thousands of other concerned citizens, and gave Don the boot.
Then came the tragedy at Virginia Tech and NBC went and plastered video and pictures of the shooter all over their television stations. Giving the murderer exactly what he wanted - fame and notoriety.
What does this tell angry, misunderstood, removed-from-reality wanna-be murderers out there?
They will be heard. They will be feared. They will be admired.
They will be famous.
All they have to do is kill lots of people.
Thanks, NBC.
posted by kate @ 5:49 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
To be fair, though, is acknowledgment of a thing's existence the same as glorification?
I suspect that people who are capable of committing atrocious acts such as the VT shootings are capable of doing it regardless of what they see on T.V. or in the media. That while there is undoubtedly a segment of the population that will greet Cho with support, I'm not sure it necessarily follows that this section of the population will automatically grow because of NBC or that people will be inspired to suddenly copycat his actions to cash in on fifteen minutes of fame.
Certainly running the video this close to the event shows a remarkable lack of compassion for the families, friends and loved ones of the victims by NBC, but I suspect that's all that can really be attributed to it. Crazies are going to crazy out, not because of NBC or because of a dog telling them to or because of Dungeons and Dragons or video games or any other reason than they are crazy and our society does nothing about crazy until people start dying.
The shooter did this and mailed the pictures and video to have a voice. A voice he knew would be broadcast on television, radio, print, and Internet. NBC should have allowed law enforcement to view these items and maybe even health care professionals to learn from such a tragedy. But they never should have given him such exposure.
How do we know that the media's attention to the Columbine killers weren't part of the attraction? Cho even mentioned them.
No, NBC can't make this guy a star and then wash their hands of any responsibility. Not on my watch.
Again, though, I'm not sure exactly where the line is on this one. Cho is a "star" not because NBC is running his practically indecipherable ranting, he's a "star" (and I'm really uncomfortable using that word) because he killed 33 people. No matter what NBC does at this point, that sort of news travels. NBC's decision to air his ranting doesn't in any real way affect the attention he's getting for his actions. In a way, it does add depth to it because we see real proof this was truly a crazy man utterly disconnected from society.
Ideally, you might be right, that as soon as NBC got the package, it should have turned the bundle over to the police and had no more to do with it. In practice, though, I'm not sure that's reasonable. There's no way something like that would have gone unnoticed and the agitation for the release of the contents would have been immediate. In the end, the same thing would have happened, the videotapes, pictures and whatnot would have been on display before the public, except it would have strung out the situation even more and NBC tried to defend it's actions before finally capitulating.
I'm sure part of the attraction was Columbine and certainly you can blame the messenger, but all this still seems to be missing the point. Simply, crazy people are going to go crazy regardless of the media's input.
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