Yesterday's incident at Virginia Tech got me thinking once again about the way the media handles things, and how it affects public perception.
In case you've been living under a rock and haven't heard, some fruitcake shot a police officer and then performed the ultimate in cowardly acts by killing himself. The picture above is of law enforcement officials looking for a killer, when they didn't yet realize the second victim was the killer and not a victim. At this time, I haven't heard why it is this guy went off the deep end and decided to reduce the Blacksburg Police Department by one, and then off himself...but I'm not overly concerned with that. No, what I'm concerned about is how quickly the media jumped on the story and sensationalized it by reminding us all what happened there 4 years ago when some nutbag went berserk and killed 32 people and wounded 25 others. That was indeed a horrific incident.
However, what happened yesterday was entirely different, the media built a neon sign worthy of Times Square out of the story instantaneously. Please don't misunderstand - I don't mean to make light of the tragedy at hand...not my point at all. It's terrible that a police officer lost his life, and I feel sad for the family left behind by the coward who shot himself. My point is that I believe a little perspective is necessary.
Virginia Tech is located in Blackburg, Va., and has about 30,000 grad and undergrad students combined. Our nation's capital of Washington, DC has 139 public schools, and 83 private and parochial schools, with a combined student body of over 60,000. There are 20 colleges and universities with a combined student body of over 70,000. This year's homicide total in DC currently stands at 104...which means a few people a week are killed in DC. How many of those were headline stories? Were the lives of those innocent victims in DC less valuable? Is there a student safety plan under constant scrutiny in DC? Do the 5th graders get a text message telling them which street corners to avoid on the way home because there are crack dealers present?
I doubt the media will ever be able to put things in perspective...so what I do is exercise a certain amount of scrutiny with the news media - disregarding a large chunk of what's reported. To be clear - I find the microscope the media stabbed Blacksburg with yesterday to be somewhat offensive, and disrespectful to the 2007's innocent victims and the institution in general.
Leave Blacksburg alone. Virginia Tech is a great school, and they don't need the media's help to do their job.
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