Petitioners to NBC: stop parroting Fox News

This is the kind of stuff I love to see - it certainly doesn't happen enough these days. The organizers of this petition drive have more than a beef; they have a legitimate point. The path from Republican talking point to the mainstream media is becoming more apparent and transparent over time.

It's pretty well known that Matt Drudge, the right-wing hack behind The Drudge Report, is in regular contact with the powers that be on the Republican National Committee. Hence, a talking point becomes a story on Fox. Since Fox is the number one rated cable news network, and every other network wants to catch them, they often parrot what Fox is reporting.

I've got a $20 that says those 200,000 signatures ended up in the trash, but I don't mean to sound cynical. I admire the effort, and I wish I would have known about it ahead of time, because I certainly would have signed it. It's only movements like these that will bring about much needed changes in the mainstream media, because it won't happen without making our voices heard.

Telling poll numbers from NBC's Russert

Speaking of the War in Iraq, last night on NBC News, Tim Russert had some pretty interesting poll results. They are indeed very telling.

I find Russert's comments on Rudy Giuliani spot on, too. Rudy is trying to take control of the issue of terrorism. Interesting how he thinks he's going to do that - he was mayor of New York City during 9-11. Okay, so that makes him qualified to lead the United States for the next four years as we battle worldwide terrorism?

People who honestly believe that Rudy would make a great leader and that he's qualified to be president really don't know much about him, or are wooed by Giuliani's slick campaign of sound bites and arrogance. His comments a few days ago about Democrats and their ability to fight the War on Terrorism may have sealed his fate - how many Democrats are going to jump across the political divide and vote for him now? I'd stay home before I'd vote for him, and I've never missed a vote in a presidential election.

Memo from hell: people will admire me

I hesitate to even post this photo, because it's so chilling, eerie and macabre. The above photo, a screen shot made from a video sent to NBC by Cho Seung-Hui and broadcast yesterday, shows the Virginia Tech gunman at his psychotic and sickening worst. The video was part of a package apparently mailed to NBC on Monday, April 16, between Cho's first and second attacks on the Virginia Tech campus. NBC said yesterday that a time stamp on the package, which contained photos, videos and a manifesto, indicated it was mailed during the two-hour window between the first and second attacks.

I still can't get over the fact that Cho was able to mount a second attack in Norris Hall that killed 30 people, two hours after the first attack. Our TVs are now filled with people from Virginia Tech full of self-congratulatory pap, claiming that they responded in a timely fashion and that everything was "well-organized" and that the university "has a specific plan in place to deal with incidents just like this."

If that's Virginia Tech's plan, they'd best put it in the round filing cabinet and start over. Two of the responders were on Today the morning following the attacks, stopping just short of bragging about how they responded. I realize that the two men, "interviewed" by Meredith Vieira, don't set policy, but Vieira could have at least asked the question, "Why did Cho have two hours to mount a second attack on the campus?"

I realize that Vieira is not really a journalist, but that's the question that everyone in America, most of all the parents and friends of these victims, wants answered, NOW.

In today's New York Times:

Campus authorities were aware 17 months ago of the troubled mental state of the student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, an imbalance graphically on display in vengeful videos and a manifesto he mailed to NBC News in the time between the two sets of shootings.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience," the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, said in one video mailed shortly before the shooting at a classroom and his suicide. "Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

NBC, which received the package on Wednesday and quickly turned it over to the authorities, broadcast video excerpts on "The NBC Nightly News."

The hostility in the videos was foreshadowed in 2005, when Mr. Cho's sullen and aggressive behavior culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution in December.

For all the interventions by the police and faculty members, Mr. Cho was allowed to remain on campus and live with other students. There is no evidence that the police monitored him and no indication that the authorities or fellow students were aware of any incident that pushed him to his rampage.

Despite Mr. Cho's time in the mental health system, when an English professor was disturbed by his writings last fall and contacted the associate dean of students, the dean told the professor that there was no record of any problems and that nothing could be done, said the instructor, Lisa Norris. [Emphasis Mine]

I certainly hope the victims' families, friends and loved ones get the answers from Virginia Tech they deserve, or at least an explanation as to why Cho fell through the university's cracks, and why so much time elapsed between the first and second attacks.

Incidentally, it's not lost on me that NBC made sure its logo appears on the photos released and the video that was broadcast yesterday. Let's never miss an opportunity to have an exclusive!

This massacre is so stunning and shocking, it's been hard for me to put it out of my mind this week, especially since I teach at a university.

I do applaud Virginia Tech for one thing, and that's shutting down classes for the entire week and for giving students, faculty and staff the resources they need to cope with the tragedy. VT at some point needs to return to the business of being an institution of higher learning, the aftermath of the tragedy was no time to be worried about academics.

I acknowledge that I don't know all of the facts surrounding this tragedy, and as they unfold, maybe VT did many things right, but the bottom line is that a more proactive approach to a double murder on its campus may very well have saved the lives of the 30 students and faculty members who died in the second attack.

Photo from AP via NBC

Wondering why network news is irrelevant?

NBC News Anchor Brian Williams would be a good place to start.

As reported by The Atlantic, here's a gem by Williams:

"You're going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I'm up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn't left the efficiency apartment in two years."

Get over yourself, Brian.

The so-called Blogosphere does have its drawbacks, but the last time I checked, network news doesn't always get the story right, either. Like CBS' relying on false documents when reporting on Bush's National Guard duty in September 2004. Or like when all three networks went to sleep in the run-up to the War in Iraq.

When the "Big Three" of network news get all of the stories right, then maybe you'll have room to be this big of a pompous ass. Since that day will never come, you may want to get out your monogrammed handkerchief and wipe away those tears. Your multi-million dollar salary will help you get over it, pretty boy.