Is there anything one can add to the flood of information and discourse about the Virginia Tech shootings, besides condolences followed by respectful silence? I think not.
But there are some things that I think would be very helpful for all of us to omit from the public traffic of information on this most grisly and terrifying of subjects.
I, for one, do not need to know the name of the flower truck deliveryman on the VT campus. Nor do I crave an extended video portrait of him making deliveries, complete with a clever camera angle from the passenger side of his truck’s cab.
I already know my opinion on the topic of gun control without hearing from advocates on any side of the issue using Virginia Tech’s story as leverage. I resolve, respectfully, to keep my gun control opinion to myself until people have had a chance to grieve. I further resolve to take any action on my convictions when there’s an appropriate opportunity.
I do not need to know that all the interviewees on the television show Showbiz Tonight are going to spend time sharing their feelings about the massacre. Nor do I have much use for actor Nicolas Cage’s observations about violence in media being, maybe, sorta, incitement … but, probably, also, kinda an outlet—promptly followed by well-groomed talking heads wanting to use his deep thoughts as the jumping-off point for spouting tired opinions on everything from guns to action movies to video games.
The identity and personal details of the killer were sufficiently provided to me by the media moments after they were discovered. I now ask the media to stop uncovering immaterial facts and then amplifying them as if they were important revelations.
It is not news, and it is not surprising to me, that the killer was mentally unstable. I pretty much had that part down right after the “multiple murder-suicide” part of the story.
Mass media’s obsession with presenting details about the killer are craven, and the public’s fascination with consuming those details is prurient. The same goes for the poor victims and the whole event. I do not need the Virginia Tech massacre “Anna-Nicole’d,” “Michael Jackson’d,” “Columbine’d,” “Katrina’d,” or “Princess Di’d.” Yet the well-worn pattern of revealing pseudo-shocking details that don’t matter, the ritual trumpeting of news “revelations” that aren’t news, and the incessant chatter and speculation of idiots in the media all drive an event as profound as the massacre at Virginia Tech into territory as debased as yesterday’s Hollywood sex scandal—or other media-blitzed true horrors—the comparison to which is neither valid nor useful.
