What a tragedy

What A Tragedy

A week ago the most horrific university shooting of U.S history occurred at Virginia Tech University.
Seung Hui Cho, a student, shot and killed 32 people (students and faculty). This was a devastating day.
The crazy part about all this is that we as viewers were able to watch the whole story unravel before our very eyes. Student journalists took out cell phones and recorded parts of the event. Others stood in their dorm rooms and took pictures with digital cameras. All of these things allowed the news to travel faster than ever.
It is crazy to see how journalism is evolving. Anyone and everyone is a journalist these days. With the use of technology (cell phone cameras and video tapes), it is easy to spread word of breaking news.
If this event had happened five years ago, the news would definitely not have gotten around as quickly as it did.
I was sitting at my television watching the event, and with each minute a new death was announced or a new video clip was played. The news was almost instant. Does this mean that journalists will soon not be needed? I mean CNN received FREE pictures from students. No one had to send out a photographer because they were getting all the photos for free.
With such a travesty as this, its pretty selfish to even talk about money, but these news stations are loving all this new technology because I am sure it is saving them a bundle.
Even Cho used media to get his point across. He made a horrific tape and sent it to NBC to that the media could relay his message to the world. Cho got exactly what he wanted. He used media to tell his side of the story and the world watched. I am not going to say I wouldn’t have wanted to see it if NBC refused to play it, but I am pissed Cho got what he wanted. And he is such a wimp for shooting himself, he couldn’t even be man enough to keep himself alive to explain his anger? So he used the media against us. What a coward.
The sad part about all this, is that this will happen again. From a journalist perspective it’s interesting to see how each incident like this is dealt with by the media.
I saw a news piece of a young woman who was in the Columbine shooting along with the Virginia Tech shooting. She said that she really didn’t want to talk to the media because of the way they behaved with Columbine. She said they didn’t give the community any space. Although it is so true that after something like this people should want their space, but again with a story such as Columbine or VT, it is hard (as a journalist) to give people space. The news does need to be told and from as many different perspectives possible. But I do understand how that would be annoying at such a time.
With the Virginia Tech incident, so much media was put out. Here are just a few of the websites that made photo stories, and multi media packages etc.
Multimedia “CRY FOR HELP”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/VATech/?CMP=google&partner=google&gclid=CISJiejh24sCFSgNIgodVWNnXw

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/

Kristof Discusses Darfur at SMU

Nicholas Kristof, a New York times columnist, came to SMU Tuesday to discuss genocide in Darfur. Although I wasn't able to make the speech, I hope I will be able to learn more from what he talked about.

Kristof has won 2 Pulizter Prizes on his columns. One on the trafficking in Cambodia, and the other for his coverage of Tiananmen square, a historical event in the world.

Apparently, Kristof uses tons of multimedia (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=Nicholas+Kristof&date_select=
full&srchst=m) in his search to fight for the rights for people that are being ignored. I feel that using multimedia tactics is a brilliant way to do so.

Yes, one may read a story on how some family was murdered right before one's eyes, but in this day and age, we humans are so immuned to "stories" of war and violence. We need to have a visual, we need to actually see that what is going on is not some bad dream, but a reality. With technology on such a rise, we should be utitilzing it in a way as to help people. Get messages across to people etc..

Kristof has traveled with a number of people to gain more knowledge of people less fortunate, such as with Jimmy Carter. They traveled to Etheopia to search for a cure for River Blindness and to gain a higher understanding of that the disease was and who was being effected.

We can talk about how we want to save the world all day long, until we are blue in the face. However, thats what we AMerican's are good at. We talk about making a difference, not so much get off our couch or stop watching reality t.v shows to actually make a difference.

I am not going to be a hypocrit, I talk about wanting to save the world all the time. But I am just "too busy" to actually do it. Its very sad to see such an amazing place fade away as it is.

I like how Kristof is trying to make a difference and I am thrilled to learn more about him and what he will do next.