This has been a horrible week, soaked in death and blood and pain that will never go away. It is a week that will never be understood. The media has been relentlessly raising safety concerns since the tragic shooting spree on Virginia Tech’s campus. Yesterday, NBC released a video which Cho Seung-Hui (the gunman) mailed to them between his brutal attacks.
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Like many have, and many others will, I watched the video; at least part of it. I’m not really sure why I watched. I know I want to find some small rationale for the deadly rampage, no matter how twisted; but, I know I never will. There can be no rationale, even twisted, for such carnage. So in the end, I guess I was just curious.
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As I indicated, I only watched part of the video. A chilling thought occurred to me halfway through the tape and I lost all desire to watch it or even acknowledge its existence. Cho Seung-Hui wanted me to watch that video. He wanted the whole world to watch it. Seung-Hui was not dumb; very mentally disturbed, but not dumb. He got into a very good school. He apparently took a number of creative classes. Seung-Hui didn’t send the video to the school’s president. He didn’t send it to the student body president. He sent it to one of the largest news organizations in the world. He knew everyone would see it. Is that all he wanted? Could that be the explanation for this thoughtless act of violence? Seung-Hui slaughtered a bunch of random people in an effort to go from his self-perceived insignificance (we are only insignificant in our own minds) to notorious infamy? As twisted as it is, it appears as though that may very well be the reason. And NBC played right into his hands by releasing the video.
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What alarms me, in regard to the safety issue the media has been questioning all week, is with the release of such a video, what is to stop other such mentally ill, troubled introverts from noticing and beginning to think along similar lines? Nothing. I think all media, no matter how big or small, if they are really concerned for safety, will stop showing this video. They will take it off the Internet. They will release statements saying that if such a video is ever sent to them in the future, no one will ever know. It will go unnoticed, their voice unheard. Again, Seung-Hui sent the video specifically to NBC, making me further ponder his intent. As much I am a fan of the show, I do not want to see an episode of “Law & Order†a month from now, in which a college student shoots a bunch of peers locked in a campus building. I don’t want to see a mini-series or movie of the week about Seung-Hui. Don’t turn him into some twisted version of a martyr for fellow disturbed peers. Instead, show videos of those massacred. Show them in their daily, happy lives, as they were before that day occurred. Give them all the attention. If Seung-Hui thought all the attention would go to those he killed; those he randomly, categorically hated, he may very well not have taken this route to have his name known.
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Again, he sent the video to NBC. He sent it to NBC. If you haven’t watched it yet, I implore you not to; trust me, you won’t find any sense in it, because there is none to be found. The only thing I know today that I didn’t know on Monday was the name Cho Seung-Hui. And that’s what he wanted. Well, I for one, will soon forget the name; never the act, but the name. I will not forget those he killed or their families, but already his name is slipping from my mind. He has failed, at least with one person.
4 users commented in " Gunman Tries To Leave Video Epitaph – Don’t Let Him "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThere is no doubt in my mind that the media has reached an all time low. The 24/7 news organizations are out there breaking their necks to ‘out sleeze’ each other. Bad news is money!
I totally agree with Ian, I have not watched the video nor do I plan too. I also disagree with the photo the Boston Globe put on the front page, it is of the shooter holding up his two guns. What an awful image to force the families of the victims to view.
One of my good friends from college was directly affected, her younger brother Ross Alameddine was senselessly killed at V-Tech and a scholarship fund has already been set up in his name at his High School Austin Prep in reading, ma. I have known Ian Coburn for a little while now and I emailed him after learning of this tradegy and he recommended that I post the information of the scholarship on this blog in case anyone would like to donate.
http://216.20.10.125/~austprep/cgi-bin/site.pl?action=page&page.path=/alumni/giving/Scholarship%20Reserve%20Fund
For a scholarship memorial. Make your check out to Austin Preparatory
School. Please enclose a note that it is intended for the ROSS ALAMEDDINE Memorial Fund. Send it to Austin at 101 Willow Street, Reading, MA,
01867.
I appreciate your supporting the family this way.
Best Regards, Jay Dowd
Thank you for anything you can offer and please continue to keep the families of the victims in your thoughts.
Yeah, you’re right, the media can get sleazy sometimes, at least the lower end of the spectrum. I’m not really too concerned with the media covering details on this story, I think they’ve done a pretty good job so far. It’s good to get an idea of warning signs and they flush that out well, as well as cover a lot of other things in the story. It’s releasing the video that I think was an error. I don’t think media should become a tool for those committing crimes, which NBC became for him by releasing the video. I have no doubt it wasn’t intentional, it was just a reaction to getting the tape and reporting news. It’s not until you really give it some thought that you realize the reasoning behind the tape for the gunman. I think it would have been better had they just handed the video over to the authorities. I think the media does a pretty good job with not playing into hands once it realizes that’s what’s happening. For example, sports shows no longer show fools running out onto the fields during games, which has put a serious dent into that activity.
Unfortunately, there are definitely those media venues that stoop low. Every now and then the bigger venues get sucked in to stay competitive but for the most part, I think they handle it well. It’s usually the gossip stuff where they get sleazy, like Anna Nicole Smith.
It’s too late – it’s out there in cyberspace and in the video vaults of the networks. There’s no way to call the Cho video back, even if the networks wanted to – and they don’t. The same warning was issued about the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11: stop showing the planes slamming into the building and the towers collapsing – it will only encourage the terrorists. Now, if you channel surf enough, you can find those 9/11 images almost any hour of the day or night. Only the Viagara commercials are more frequent. No one has ever gone broke underestimating the taste and morals of network broadcast executives.
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