Thank you, Virginia Tech Students.
I, like the Governor of Virginia and many others have been impressed with the level-headedness and goodwill demonstrated by the students of Virginia Tech during the recent killings there.
I wish I could feel the same way about the press who interviewed them.
Every television report that I saw revealed a media determined to turn journalism into theater. They asked questions aimed at unearthing emotion—whether grief or anger. They pointedly and repeatedly suggested that blame should be levied at the University administrators or police.
These tactics of trying to elicit emotion and assign blame work for playwrights who, in the case of a well-made play, need the conflict that the bad guy/good guy scenario provides. And, in Western theater, emotion makes the theatrical event all the more interesting. But can these tactics be considered journalism?
We may never fully understand the shooter's motives. He may have been deranged due to jealousy. He may have been caught in some bizarre and evil fantasy. Or—he may have been erroneously blaming others and taking deranged revenge.
Deranged blaming of others can be the cause of this kind of tragedy.
"On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school." (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~bauerle/disaster.htm) Kehoe blamed the school board and took revenge on the school children.
Can blaming without sufficient cause, without sufficient evidence ever help us get at the truth, or help ensure peaceful resolutions?
We all know that journalists have, in recent years, steadily succumbed to evermore sensationalist tactics. In this case, the media, in their tactics aimed at inciting blame, seem closer in intention to the perpetrator than to the victims. And this point was made ever so clearly by the comparison between the students answering questions and the media asking them. The students' responses to the media's tactics were to remain clear-headed: They assured us that they believed the administration and police had been and were doing all that they could, given the circumstances. They did not create additional drama because no more drama was needed.
So—all the best to those brave and kind students. The media could certainly learn a lesson from you.
Dr. Sharon Rudorf teaches theater at Elgin Community College in Illinois.
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