Regarding the celebrity news being bumped for the Virginia Tech coverage:

In the spring of '01, a young master's degree candidate/intern went missing in DC right before she was scheduled to return to CA. At least in the DC area, we had daily coverage of Chandra Levy's disappearance for over 3 months. Then September 11 occurred and her story was old news and was put on a back burner.

The diversity of the victims is really remarkable to me, also. Different nationalities and races, religions, ages, passions...it's such a tragic event and yet the very diversity exhibited in those classrooms is one of the reasons that many of them probably decided to study there or in the United States.

The shooter's ramblings went on assailing Christianity, wealth and spoiled white kids, but it sure appears that most of the people he murdered were the very opposite. They all sound like remarkable people that had so much promise and so much to give to the rest of the world.

One of the quotes in that story had me going: :confused:

At both schools I went to, guns or anything that could be considered a weapon was absolutely forbidden on campus grounds and in the dormitories.

I don't really like that this quote makes it sound like any student can bring a gun to campus and it's OK, because it's not. (At least at the schools I went to... although I doubt that is much different at other schools??)

"Cowering"? How about taking cover perhaps? Please explain to me how they were going to "stop the rampage"? You are being completely unrealistic.........and from what I understand, the Korean blew his head off just as the first units arrived on the scene. I've heard it stated clearly on reports that the cops actions were nothing like Columbine, and that they immediatiely entered the building when they arrived.

.....but i'm glad you feel secure basing your thoughts off of a picture of one........count it.....one cop.

Responses like yours are the reason why I don't like to watch coverage of the events or really even listen to what people have to say other than the students and the victims. In the end, all it ends up being is a huge bitch fest about what wasn't done right, who was at fault, who was "acting like a coward", and other similar bullshit. Its pretty damn easy to point a bunch of fingers after you have seen it all completely played out. It makes me sick that you can call that police officer a coward while you are sitting behind a fucking computer.

I agree with macallan about the police actions. Remembering, too, that the first responding officers were members of a university department who are not likely (no matter how well trained) to have been subjected to this kind of situation.

As for the use of the video tapes, pictures, etc., I'm sure glad I didn't have to make the decision. A real no-win situation.

Finally, once again, I was at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas when a huge story broke.

I say "again" because both Columbine and Waco/Branch Dividian final standoff happened during NAB.

A very strange coincidence.

I'm curious, did the convention empty out when the story broke? And, was it a different week the year of the OKC bombing?

I agree with macallan about all the finger pointing. There is one person at fault. There are things we can learn by analyzing what occurred and how, and there should always be a retrospective analysis of what needs to be done differently in the future, so that something is learned from it, but finger pointing does no good.

In regard to the post about the police behind a tree in the news footage...

When I was a member of the rescue squad, the first thing was always your personal safety. I guess the best way to describe it is this: if I was to run in the middle of an active shooting with no regard to my personal safety, then get shot, now I have two patients and need another medic to come hlep. Basically, you are helping no one by getting yourself injured. Make sense?

Or because they always hold the conventions in mid-April?

My parents' anniversary is April 19th - I asked my mom what was the deal with all the tragedies around that date - she said she'd wondered about it, too!:rolleyes:

By us as well. With bi-weekly room checks and random bag searches...getting stuff in would be possible but not that easy.

I don't blame them at all

Interesting. I know of four couples who were married on April 18th, and they're all divorced!

Oh yikes. I almost chose that day as my wedding day! Kinda glad I didn't now...

Well, my parents have been married for 44 years, so it's not all bad!:)

can't blame them at all

At some point the media needed to leave and I am glad that various students and alumni are letting them know this.

Anyways, I know someone made a remark earlier about me being a student, but I am actually a pretty recent alum who feels like it was just yesterday that I was in those classrooms. Not too mention I am up there at least 10 times a year. More when my boyfriend was still there finishing up his degree.

Anyways I also saw that that crazy WBC (?) group isn't planning on picketting now if they get airtime on some show to speak about the event and their religion. Not sure if it will happen though, the airtime I mean.

The airtime thing has been done before for them. I'm willing to bet any media outlet will gladly give them some time to spew their shit. There's actually a great video on youtube where the interview starts out civilly between the anchor and Shirley Phelps? and by the end, the anchor is just screaming at Shirley. Pretty much what we all want to do. I'll see if I can dig up some photoshops for you, we had a thread on another forum where they photoshopped over the signs and made it completely hilarious. I'll post them in another thread of course.

?

Something about April I don't know?

I was just saying that it isn't a coincidence, as many of those events were planned to happen (columbine at least) because of the historical significance of the dates. It also isn't a coincidence that they place the convention in mid-April, as it is a great time for travel (spring breaks over, but nice weather) and cheaper than summer rates at hotels.

Just had this thought, while reading this, that Hitler's birthday is also around this time?
Just checked: it is. April 20th

IIRC, there was some talk about this during the other events.

Ah. Got ya. That makes some sense. I hadn't thought about it that way.

And now, I remeber the Hitler birthday thing from the Columbine coverage.

This thing has had quite an effect around here due to our proximity to Columbine. (Daughter two used to live just across Clement Park from the high school)

Bad stuff.

I think this is a pretty good analysis piece:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local...lines-virginia

'I Saw Bullet Holes Coming Through the Door'
He almost cut French class. But Colin Goddard made the fateful decision to attend that Monday morning—and wound up full of bullets. One student in Cho's path.

April 18, 2007 - Monday began normally enough for Colin Goddard, a 21-year-old international studies student in his fourth year at Virginia Tech. His first class was French, at 9:05 a.m., in 211 Norris Hall, but Goddard was running a little late because he'd picked up a classmate who was having car problems. After toying with the idea of cutting class that day, the two of them decided to go. There were about 17 students enrolled in the course, many of them International Studies majors fulfilling their language requirements. Many had taken a lower-level French course together the previous semester.
As they entered the room, they heard a series of loud bangs that sounded like they were coming from the hallway, or maybe from the class next door. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is," the teacher, Madame Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, said to the class. "We told her it was no big deal," Goddard told NEWSWEEK. "There has been a lot of construction going on at Norris. People were complaining about it all semester, and it sounded like it could have been a hammer." Couture was concerned enough to open the class door and peek out into the hallway. "She immediately shut the door—she had this terrified look on her face—and she said 'Call 911,'" Goddard said.

Goddard pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911 himself, and with the operator on the line, began trying to explain the situation and where he was calling from. The operator was having trouble understanding Goddard and kept repeating the wrong location back to him. At the same time, other students were trying to barricade the classroom door that for some reason wouldn't or couldn't lock. "After that, I saw bullet holes start coming through the door," Goddard said. "It looked like he was trying to shoot the lock out. When he started firing at the door, I hit the floor."

After a few seconds, Cho came into the room. Goddard, his view of the classroom door partly obstructed by a desk, got his first glimpse of the killer. "He had on boots, dark pants and a white shirt. All of the students were on the ground, and he just started walking down the rows of desks, shooting people multiple times. He didn't say anything. He didn't demand anything. He was just shooting." The 911 operator was still on the phone, and Goddard, not wanting to draw attention to himself, dropped it to the floor. A girl named Heidi picked it up, begging the police to hurry. But it was too late, and Cho turned toward them. "I think he heard the police on the phone," Goddard said. "He shot some people near me, he shot the girl across from me in the back. Then I felt a very forceful rush of air and a pinch or a sting in my leg." Goddard felt himself flinch when the bullet hit him, but he did his best to stay still, to play dead. "Nobody tried to get up and be a hero," he said. Then the shooting stopped.

Goddard resisted the urge to move or try to look around. "I thought he was still in the room." Soon the gunshots started again, back out in the hallway; other sounds in the classroom were now audible. A few students were calling out to each other, Goddard said. He heard the voice of the 911 operator, still squawking into his cell phone, and saw Christina, the girl who had been shot in the back. A male student on the floor near him was making a low, constant gurgling sound. "We were just lying on the floor" for what Goddard estimates as 10 to 15 minutes. He heard more gunshots outside. Then, sirens. And shouts.

Suddenly, the classroom door burst open again. The killer was back. "He came back in and started going around the room again, shooting people." Up one aisle and down another, Cho moved through the room, repeating the path he had taken the first time. When the killer reached Goddard, he felt two more bullets punch into his body, one in the shoulder, and one in his buttocks. "My chest and torso were kind of underneath a desk, that's why I think I got shot in my extremities," he told NEWSWEEK

My school, The University of La Verne, held a prayer service for the victims of the tragedy last week. There are also ribbons commemorating each life taken (minus the killer) outside the school library. It was very touching to see them this week and read the names on each ribbon.

I'm just wondering if any media have addressed stigma attached to mental illness in certain cultures, which may have played a role into the killer's disintegration (I know that he has had help, but I am wondering if it was already too late). Or is this too sensitive a topic right now?

The First Virginia Tech Cartoons were Terrible
 

How is this, a member of the media in his own blog, saying how poor the media's responce to this was.
APRIL 20, 2007
The First Virginia Tech Cartoons were Terrible
When a lunatic killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University earlier this week I knew what to expect from political cartoonists, who don't react well to tragedy. Some of the cartoons seemed insensitive, as today's generation of jokesters struggled to respond to a story with no lighter side.
http://cagle.com/news/BLOG/main.asp

And some of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
http://cagle.com/news/VirginiaTechShootings/

I just looked through those and about half of those were tasteless. Don't cartoonists realize that families are grieving? It's called common courteousy!

Isn't there a stigma against mental illness in pretty much all cultures?

some are worse than others.

That is just what the owner of the website said in his blog.:confused:

Horrifying. I understand the school has set up funds to assist victims and their families. I hope that the survivors are able to get the best counseling possible to help them cope. How can they ever feel safe again? :(

Why is this guy writing about all that and complaining, yet he posts them on his website? Hypocrisy.

Exactly. I could go on and on about problems in my community.

On an unrelated note, I just found out minutes ago I'm distantly related to Coach Beamer but my source didn't tell me how, lol.

Perhaps.
But he is also "reporting" was has been already drawn and seen around the country.
And doing his own Op-Ed story.

One of the reason I find his site so interesting is that one can see just what others are seeing reported, or rather drawn, around the country and the world.

If I really tried, I could get about 6-8 local papers in my area on any given day but that is not something I would ever do.

I met him several years ago. He seemed genuinely nice. I heard that following last week's tragedy, he visited hospitalized victims as well as some of the families of students who were killed. From what I gather, he is extremely down to earth and just an all-round good person. I've wondered what the first football game is going to be like next season. The baseball game last week was evidently quite a healing time for everyone involved.

Yesterday I found out that my ex was really good friends with one of the victims. I felt really bad-my ex hates me and doesn't talk to me anymore, but that doesn't stop me from caring.

SAE Brother Helps Save Lives in Shooting:
 

SAE in the News
<H2>Member Helps Save Lives in Shooting:</H2>from CNN.com

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Monday's toll inside Virginia Tech's Norris Hall might have included 11 more students had it not been for a long, rectangular table and a quick-thinking senior who used it to deflect the rampage of his fellow classmate.
http://www.sae.net/index.asp?r=newsr...=110&art_cat=3


Quick-thinking student credited with saving lives

POSTED: 4:59 p.m. EDT, April 23, 2007

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vte...all/index.html

Heroes of the Virginia Tech massacre

POSTED: 6:44 p.m. EDT, April 23, 2007


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/23/vat...oes/index.html

Refusing to cower, he saved lives

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/loca...ved_lives.html

Honoring the heroes
Alexander R. Cohen, Opinion Columnist

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArtic...30246&pid=1585

Big media gives VT killer infamy he desired
http://www.purdueexponent.org/?modul...&story_id=5615

Virginia Tech rampage lasted just nine minutes
 

This seems to answer several questions; some of which were asked with in this thread:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seung-Hui Cho took just nine minutes to fire more than 170 rounds of ammunition as he gunned down dozens of his fellow students and staff at Virginia Tech last week, police said on Wednesday.
Police provided new details about how Cho killed 30 other people at Norris Hall on April 16, the deadliest such massacre in modern U.S. history, before killing himself as police raced up the stairs of the classroom building.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...5?feedType=RSS