Found at Joe’s place
The media figured out long ago that it’s a bad idea to show streakers and unruly fans at football and baseball games. When some idiot runs out onto the field in his birthday suit the cameras cut away and the announcers just comment that there’s an idiot screwing up the game. They never publicize the moron’s name or discuss his actions because they know that the publicity will just encourage some other moron to play copy-cat. For some reason they can’t maintain that kind of standard when mass murder is involved. They seek out the murderer’s family and friends, they publish their rants and photo’s and they give the bastards exactly what they want – fame.
I’m just a little-bitty corner of the media; a small voice crying out in the wilderness, but I will never again name a murderer or play a role in keeping his memory alive. I hope that others in the media will grow a conscience and do likewise. I don’t expect it, but I will continue to hope.
For those asking, this pretty much explains why I haven’t written about what happened at the gun-bigoted school in the gun-bigoted state in Illinois.
I’m not “pretending it didn’t happen”, I just don’t think it rates.
It doesn’t even rate as a surprise. When you allow people dependent on psychotic medications to roam free without penalty for not taking their medications and then herd defenseless victims into a confined space, this will happen. Whether the guy uses a firearm, a meat cleaver, a butcher knife, an ax, a car, or gasoline and a match; Mentally unstable people who want to kill will gravitate towards easy prey.
That is why they’re called “predators”.
“I’m not “pretending it didn’t happenâ€, I just don’t think it rates.”
Careful — that cuts both ways. How many times has a firearm been lawfully used in self-defense and the press has ignored the story because it doesn’t fit their agenda?
The trick is some balance in coverage. Yes, mention that the event occurred, but don’t dwell on it non-stop, as the media did after Virginia Tech, for example. Folks ought to know what’s going on in the world, but at the same time few things truly warrant 24/7 editorializing.
There’d be ample room in the papers and airwaves to cover all this if the MSM would stop flooding the news with Brittany Spears’ latest stunt.
Regarding crazies causing chaos in public, remember the guy who tried to light folks on fire in downtown Seattle? Luckily no one was seriously hurt, but mostly due to a quick thinking person, not because the police arrived in time.
Pingback: Random Nuclear Strikes » RNS Quote of the Day: 02/19/08