NPR’s Morning Edition interviewed a woman today concerning the media coverage surrounding (enveloping? choking?) the Virginia Tech shootings. The upshot was, the media is being a huge hungry hound and is exacerbating the trauma on a number of students/faculty/staff/etc. The woman interviewed was a survivor of the Jonesboro shootings in 1998 when she was a 13 year old sixth grader. She spoke about how the media camped out for the remainder of the school year (March-June), not allowing the school any peace.
NPR also taped some quick soundbites with current students at VT concerning their opinions that the media empire needed to pack up and go; their presence is not allowing VT to heal. The slant of the entire segment was “Media: thou art evil, now GO!”
Of course this was on a radio news program. I wonder if the students being interviewed about the too-extensive media coverage appreciated the irony of their actions.
NPR is not immune from the same budget factors that drive the ABC’s and CNN’s and Fox’s of the world. They, however, have a reputation for calm, unbiased, dispassionate objectivity which occassionally gets them into a sticky situation, like this one.
The irony is hot, let’s go press some scenes.
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