This column reflects on what some would consider "old" news - the shootings at Virginia Tech - and I offer this observation: Reporters, editors and readers needed breathing room after this horrific event to achieve some kind of perspective on what happened there.
The coverage of the worst mass shooting in American history has raised interesting questions about the direction and velocity of modern American journalism. Some readers and television viewers felt assaulted by the in-your-face presentation of the bad news - very large headlines and photos, including menacing close-ups of the shooter brandishing handguns. Others felt numbed by the often repetitive nature of the coverage, especially some of the hand-wringing, emotionally charged television reports allegedly examining grief.
Then there were the thousands of bloggers who used cell phones and the Internet to share information immediately - like the 41-second cell video taken by a Virginia Tech student that gave the world its first glimpse of the chaos on the Blacksburg, Va., campus.
In this intensely competitive multimedia era, journalists went all out to cover the story. An army of reporters and photographers - from newspapers, magazines, cable and broadcast networks and an array of non-traditional outlets - descended on the campus of 26,000 students. Once the assailant, who committed suicide, and his 32 victims were identified, a flood of stories touching on every conceivable angle - guns, mental illness, privacy and counseling, campus security - were produced.
National correspondent Robert Little, who was among the seven Sun journalists dispatched to Virginia Tech, described the scene. "Reporters were waiting outside dormitories and class buildings, waiting to interview any student or faculty member who emerged, so there were mini-press conferences all over campus. But soon the students became wary and almost cynical. The most common response became, `No comment.' "
NBC's release of details from the "multimedia manifesto" mailed to the network by the media savvy murderer, Seung-Hui Cho, sparked a new level of intensity. Cable networks played clips of his menacing videos and newspapers published disconcerting still images as journalists sought to reconstruct the crime and examine Cho's history for clues about his motivation. Not surprisingly, Cho's video drew very heavy Internet traffic, but many readers and viewers were taken aback by the mainstream media's treatment of the "manifesto."
