Thursday, April 19, 2007

Blurring entertainment - Cho Seung-hui

You say that is this is the way to be.....then you complain when I become it

Tonight as NBC Nightly News ended, I watched with horror and revulsion as Brian Williams showed footage of the Virginia gunman unleashing his hateful rage to a camera. This was shown along with many still shots. As the images were presented I found myself become more and more worried. Then as the film footage was seen, my feelings were confirmed. The airing of such imagery is a grave mistake. This package, this' killing manifesto' is something that should not be seen by the general public at all!

What was concerning me as I watched is something that I have seen for too long in my own little island as regards to presenting news on crime. Somehow the media thinks that it is entitled to show gore and carnage as though it were some sort of entertainment, and it is helped by the fact that just as one would look at a television show, the news also has advertising interspersed between the slots for news, weather and sports. This cannot be helped, yet it can blur the line between what is real and what is not. This tragedy is too devastating to handle imagery of the other side at this time. It is irresponsible to show the killer as this media house has. They have played into his sick little cold, dead hands.

All people in the media should be able to see and read in the package this man FedExed to the television station, the slickness, the glorification of violence that the killer is promoting. This is not a movie! The thirty two people killed are not going to get up from their death poses and walk off. What happened on Monday was real, and the killer should not be given the same sort of press as the victims at all! What is also horribly, horribly wrong here is that this killer has calculated his presentation and I am terribly afraid that he has successfully set a bar for future nutcases to come. The world has not seen the last of people like this, and all that we all can do now is hope that those who can read the early signs can be listened to. -Adele

1 comment:

Stefan Falke said...

I agree with you 100 % . The news are the wrapping for advertisments. Whatever works for them, they will show it. But the newspapers are not that much better, the New York Times had a long article a few days ago about the ratings of the different tv stations and their handling of this particular crisis. That is what counts, the RATINGS, the presentations! The news are not anymore the news, the ratings are the news. The media itself is news. And who is able to really take these tragedies in anymore when we are confronted with similar numbers of dead civilians and soldiers in Iraq on a daily basis ? To keep a little of my sanity I have not watched TV in 5 years now, that is my only answer.

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