I didn’t turn on my TV yesterday except in the evening, to watch a national network’s news report. I wanted to see a summary of what a serious journalism organization had to say about what it knew so far.
Instead, during the day, I used the online media – including the major news sites – to get the latest information, sifting it, making judgments about credibility and reliability as I read and watched and listened. That, too, is the future in many cases.
It’s also worth noting that the citizen media component of this terrible event is not a new to the digital era. When President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas back in 1963, Abraham Zapruder caught the gruesome killing on a home movie camera – footage that became an essential part of the historical record. But the difference between then and tomorrow is this:
In 1963, one man with a camera captured the event on film. In a very few years, a similar situation would be captured by thousands of people – all holding high-resolution video cameras – and all of those cameras would be connected to high-speed digital networks.
Link.
It is an unspeakable and overwhelming tragedy, up to 30 young Americans killed violently, pointlessly, and the rest of us left with an urgent and almost helpless feeling that somebody could have done something to prevent it, and that everybody must do something to protect the next potential victims.
And yet, the same number of young Americans of approximately the same age have died in Iraq in the last 10 days. Clearly, while one make take issue with the comparison, one may not ignored the similarities.
Moreover, in a more practical sense, the deaths in Iraq could have been much more readily prevented, and the desire much more easily fulfilled to protect the more potential victims there. No one questions the nation's grief about Virginia Tech — but have we suppressed our grief about Iraq?
(…) It seems fair to ask the question: If the violent deaths in Virginia send a nation into shock and expressions of concern and anxiety, why isn't a continuous flow of American blood in Iraq generating a similar reaction?
(via TV Newser).
I agree with BoingBoing reader Doyle's comments about predicting the religion of the
shooter. Speculating him as Muslim, based on the finding of wording
"Ismail AX", leans toward the islamophobic thoughts. The character
Ismael belongs not only to a single but to various Abrahamic religions
i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc, and most of these religions
predates Islam. More news is surfacing about the
shooter's social interactions, which could lead to the fact that he
was a psychotic, and may not have had much religious
influence at all. Perhaps he just took the story of Abraham in a mythological way
(even if it is remotely related). Has anyone thought or come up with a
non religious explanation of 'Ismail AX'? It is amazing to see how
people quickly connect anything bad with one religion. It's like they are
looking for an excuse, not the answers.
In this BoingBoing post, you note that the shooter at Virginia Tech was interviewed by police related to stalking issues, etc., but apparently there was never enough evidence to charge/arrest him. An ongoing argument in these cases (and addressed by the NYT article linked here) is the changes since the 1960s in what it takes to involuntarily committ people to mental institutions.
I am not endorsing this, but the argument is that in the 1950s someone like the shooter would have been a lot easier to force into mental health treatment, whereas today law enforcement/etc's hands are tied until he crosses very clear lines … in which case, often its too late to prevent the violent offenses.
Jeff Trexler says,
In an eerie coincidence, the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education features an op-ed by two attorneys on Virginia & the law affecting how university administrators respond to students with suicidal students: Link. Its conclusion in a nutshell is that liability concerns & statutory restrictions keep universities from addressing otherwise preventable tragedies. The date of this issue is 4/20/07. It went to press before the VT shootings.
Video Link: Nikki Giovanni, an author and poet and professor at Virginia Tech, closed out the memorial convocation yesterday with an amazing and moving spoken word poem. The entire crowd at Cassell Coliseum breaks out into a "Let's Go Hokies!" chant afterwards. There's a shot of the football coach, Frank Beamer, crying.
Professor Giovanni actually requested that the killer, Seung-Hui Cho, be removed from her class when she taught him — and threatened resignation if he wasn't. She also has "thug life" tattooed on her in Tupac's memory. (Not relevant, but cool.)
Now that the identity of the suspected shooter at Virginia Tech is known, AAJA cautions the use of his heritage or immigrant status in news coverage. We understand the need to research the background of Seung-Hui Cho (first name is pronounced "sung hee") and to provide details about him as a nation struggles to make sense of the horrific incident.
But we are disturbed by some media outlets' prominent mention that the suspect is an immigrant from South Korea when such a revelation provides no insight or relevance to the story. The fact he is not a U.S. citizen and was here on the basis of a green card, while interesting, should not be a primary focus in the profiling of him. To highlight that suggests his immigration status played a role in the shootings; there's been no such evidence.
We remind the media that the use of racial and other identifiers must be accompanied with context and relevance. Without it, we open the door to subjecting an entire people to unfair treatment or portrayal based on their skin color or national heritage.
Full text here, and the AAJA's stylebook is here (thanks, Jesse Thorn).
See also this NYT story on reactions in Korea: Link.
– – – – – – – – – –
Previously on BB:
– – – – – – – – – –
Elda Rossell wrote:
I just open my email after finished read the incident in the local newspaper. And it was full of messages regarding the speculation whether Ismail is the VT Shooter or not.
When I read those message and yours, I was shocked, and until I write this reply I’m still shocked.
To clarify this, my friend is not the VT Shooter.
Yes, the murderer name (Cho Seung Hui) had a very similar name to his name, Cho Seung Hoo.
Please note to the HOO and the HUI in their names.
I already saw the murderer picture in NY Times and other news websites. He’s definitely not my friend Cho Seung Hoo. They are completely different person.
First of all, they don’t have the exact similar face.
My friend is 25 years old not 23. When he came to Indonesia, he just finished his study in college majoring computer. He doesn’t speak English very fluently.
My co-workers are very fond of him because he is very friendly and always make time to talk to them while he was staying at our hostel. He is a very funny and talkative person, definitely not a loner.
Currently, he still teaching computer in Indonesia until next year and then he will go back to his homeland.
He is not a Moslem. He is a Christian. Ismail was ONLY his nick name while he studied Bahasa Indonesia. He maybe didn’t use that name again now.
HE IS INNOCENT.
I’m feeling guilty right now. Just because I put his picture in my blog and Flickr, he has to face that false accusation.
Please spread this message to your friends and colleagues so that they don’t ‘torment’ my friend with their accusation and stop this rumor.
————-
Reader comments: Ian says,
As an update to your roundup of Virginia Tech press reaction, in addition to Wonkette, you may find this piece my Middle East Expert Juan Cole informative. Snip:
"The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. They are only 13% of the total; most Iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. Shot down, like the college students and professors at Blacksburg. We Americans can so easily, with a shudder, imagine the college student trying to barricade himself behind a door against the armed madman without. But can we put ourselves in the place of Iraqi students?"
Link to "Iraq Has Two Virginia Techs Every Day."
