I wrote the other night that the Virginia Tech killer … he and he alone … was responsible for the lives he took last Monday. I meant that then and I still mean it.

Nonetheless, culpability in the next (God forbid) mass murder might not be that clear cut … and there might be more shades of grey in the Virginia Tech tragedy than I've recognized.

What has me upset is NBC's reckless and irresponsible decision to air the Killer's "Multi-Media Manifesto," as they called it, and the fallout that the broadcast has caused. NBC did not have a legitimate news-related reason to air those pictures and video clips. They aired those clips purely to appeal to what Edgar Allen Poe called "The Imp Of The Perverse" in all of us. That's Poe's phrase for that dark little spot on the human psyche that makes people take a good long look at a bloody car crash, and that keeps websites like rotten.com in business, and that makes "reality TV" a sad reality.

NBC knew that people would tune in to see those clips, and that they could generate big-time advertising revenue by airing them. In the meantime, we learned nothing of consequence about the VT massacre. We already knew that the shooter was out of his mind based on what he did Monday morning. NBC's decision to air those video clips and photographs is the slimiest decision I can remember any TV network having made. Howard Beale himself wouldn't have broadcast that trash.

I think NBC needs to be held accountable. I don't know how, I don't know what method is appropriate, but I think that somebody should have to answer for this. Jobs should be lost, standards should be questioned, and lessons should be learned and remembered. NBC needs a wake-up call.

Just consider some of the following:

From Wired.com... quoting Dr. Jerald Kay, Chair of the American Psychiatric Association Committee on College Mental Health -- "There appears to be more evidence of copycat behavior in incidents such as the one at Virginia Tech than that of suicide contagion, which refers to the potential influence of reporting suicide in evoking similar experiences in others.

"It would be wise, therefore, not to repeatedly air the video tapes that NBC received. The potential gains are clearly outweighed by the potential dangers."

From the Daily Telegraph...even as the images (of the killer's "manifesto" were removed (from the airwaves), schools and colleges nationwide remained on high alert following a string of copycat scares.

Police across the country responded to threats on Thursday made by phone, email and even written on the bathroom wall all threatening a Virginia Tech-type attack.

In California's Yuba City, 36 schools were locked down as police searched for a man who threatened to go on a killing spree.

He reportedly claimed he would make the Virginia Tech rampage look mild and investigators said the suspect had an AK-47, bombs and poison.

From the Denver Post:… experts fear (that) other vulnerable, angry boys may try to copy or surpass Cho's massacre. As of Friday, the FBI counted 35 to 40 mostly school- based threats, with everything from bombs to guns to mere words, some leading to arrests.

"This is serious business. This is not a time for jokes, and it needs to stop," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, who said all must be investigated. "These threats are abhorrent and those that make them are subject to prosecution and serious prison time."

From the Herald Bulletin: “We keep fueling the contagion every time we show footage of Columbine-style kids jumping out the window,” said Northeastern University criminal justice professor James Alan Fox. He and others also are troubled by references to the Virginia Tech massacre as setting a record for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.

Since then, some of the threats, including one in Yuba City, Calif., have mentioned attempts to shatter the Virginia Tech mark.

“These people are psychologically competing with each other to increase the body count,” Coleman said.

True, other TV news outlets aired the footage, and it's hit YouTube like wild fire, but the buck has to stop somewhere. NBC received the package from the killer, and before they turned it over to the FBI, they made copies of everything so that they could air it and create the most disturbing and macabre version of "news" imaginable.

Am I alone in my opinion, here? God knows I can be a crack-pot. Maybe that's what I'm doing now. Is this another of my nutty notions?

Are there others who agree with me? And, if so, what do we do? I don't believe in boycotts, I think they're silly … but what are our other options? Should we put on pressure for a congressional inquiry? Maybe a Rather-gate type of campaign by bloggers to address this? Or just a good old fashioned pissed-off letter writing campaign? Heck, I don't know. I just can't help but feel that somebody at NBC has some screwed up priorities and, as my grandmother used to say, somebody needs to "jerk a knot in their asses."

Oh, and by the way, there actually is scum out there worse than NBC. Take this guy that I learned about from Andrew Kantor: His name is Joseph Parker. As soon as he could, he jumped on the net last week and registered domain names like vtmurders.com and vtmurders.info with the hopes of selling them for a big profit. By the way, he also registered choseung-hui.com, and he's asking a million bucks for that prime piece of internet real estate. Real lovely guy, right? Here's his particulars:

Registrant:
Joseph Parker
320 Church St
Christiansburg, Virginia 24073
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: VTMURDERS.COM
Created on: 16-Apr-07
Expires on: 16-Apr-08
Last Updated on:

Administrative Contact:
Parker, Joseph joep152@aol.com
320 Church St
Christiansburg, Virginia 24073
United States
(540) 381-3888

Technical Contact:
Parker, Joseph joep152@aol.com
320 Church St
Christiansburg, Virginia 24073
United States
(540) 381-3888

Maybe he needs some e-mail and/or phone calls from those of us who think that profiting off of mass murder isn't so nice.

Labels: Media, News