Everything Hits At Once

I fear that at some point in my life I have become some sort of media junkie. When there is a HUGE story of historical proportions I cannot soak up enough information about it. I'm constantly watching the news and checking the internet for more updates and more perspectives. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Let me make it clear that I'm not a complete, over-the-top, hopeless case. I don't follow just any story. Like anyone with a brain, I was disgusted and outraged by the amount of coverage given to Anna Nicole Smith's death. I can honestly say that I never clicked on a single link to learn more about the story, and I didn't sit through a minute of news coverage. I certainly didn't watch and special features on the subject. I can say the same thing about the alleged Jon-Benet Ramsey murdered that they captured a few months back. I couldn't care less about the gossip surrounding people who are famous for all the wrong reasons. Nor do I care about celebrity relationship or how many children are adopted by Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, and Madonna.

But there are events from which I can't turn away. The September 11th attacks are the first thing I can remember. I watched the news for hours that week and constantly read stories on it. Another example was Hurricane Katrina. I'd visited all the cities involved in these tragedies, and I was planning to go New Orleans about a week after the hurricane hit. In both of those cases I still feel there wasn't enough news coverage. With the attacks, the coverage quickly turned to hand-holding and patriotism and revenge. With Katrina, the story just faded away too quickly, despite the fact that many people still needed help and the nation needed to be aware of what was happening.

Things are different with this Virginia Tech story. There is no doubt in my mind that the level of coverage has been absurd. Just when you think the media can't possibly top themselves (see Anna Nicole Smith), they find a way to ratchet things up to a new level.

I admit to being interested in this story. Not because I know several people who attended the school (at this point, I can recall 5 acquaintances, but there may be more), but because it is a tragedy of epic proportion, and it is one that, like 9/11, looks as if it could have been averted, at least on the surface. (Of course, I realize that in both cases COULD HAVE BEEN means nothing--it just is NOT possible to stop every person who seems like they are a little off because most of them DON'T do any harm.) I watched the video of the shooter. I looked at the photos. And I read all I could about the victims (this is the one aspect of the story not getting nearly enough attention.) But it all makes me feel a little sick. I think NBC made the right choice in airing the video, but I also think that all the networks then proceeded to beat it into the ground. And before the video came out, when there had been nothing new for almost 24 hours, it seems to me that the stories about the shooter should have dropped off the front page for a bit and the focus should have been on other news in the world and the victims (though not in an obvious, attention getting way, which is all we're seeing now--Larry King and Anderson Cooper talking to crying mothers.)

I don't know when any of this started. It wasn't always this way for me. Perhaps the growth of internet news sites is to blame. Or perhaps it was just a gradual change in character. I can say that I know very little about the Oklahoma City bombing. Everything I know about the disaster on Everest and the tragedy in Littleton, CO, comes from information I've read years later. I don't even know much about the Olympic bombing that took place in Atlanta, thought it took place when I was in college and was less than 30 minutes from my doorstep (I do know that Eric Rudolph was the culprit, but what ever happened to that security guard they blamed first?)