4.19.2007

Take the Al Jazeera Poll - Should the Virginia Tech Gunman's Video Be Broadcast

By broadcasting the video that the deranged student recorded, the news media is only encouraging copycats. The gunman himself referred to the Columbine killers, no doubt because of their video messages.

Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On The Media said today that airing the videos was the only thing news outlets could do. I disagree. The graphic and offensive images are not providing any new information and only serve to encourage others to follow suit.

Al Jazeera has an online poll. Take it and see what their readers think.

2 comments:

The Lazy Iguana said...

Interesting poll results. I voted "no" for the Al Jazeera poll and "yes" on the CNN or whatever poll.

The American poll results were 51% saying no. The Al Jazeera results were 53% yes.

I do not think the "manifesto" adds anything new to the story. It does however give the media more to talk about. They can show the video and photos, talk about them, find "experts" to talk about it, then talk about how terrible it is that people are talking about the video they aired.

I feel another news strike coming on. Please tell me when the news resumes.

The Lazy Iguana said...

Truly very sad. People like Shaalan need to be remembered, not the crazy guy.

While I think the death of the professor who was blocking the door is also very sad, the lives of the students cut short is just awful. The professor was already old and had a chance to live his life. The students however were just starting theirs. They had many years ahead of them, and who knows what they would have accomplished.

It is all very sickening.