Professional discussion of coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings

[Omar_dont_scare]

Just stumbled across Anderson/Cooper and a report on how there should have been a "lockdown."

Reporter was recounting the 2-hour gap, specifically one moment around 8:15 or so if memory serves. "By then the shooter could have been anywhere, just a face in the crowd. But if there was a lockdown, he would have been out of circulation."

Yes, if there would have been a lockdown on a campus of several thousand acres and 20,000-plus students and employees...

I mean, how do they not at least examine the logistics of such things before reporting them?

Steger and the VT police chief are gonna get ousted over this, and it's a shame. Could've happened on any campus, anywhere.

 

[HeinekenMan]

Just stumbled across Anderson/Cooper and a report on how there should have been a "lockdown."

Reporter was recounting the 2-hour gap, specifically one moment around 8:15 or so if memory serves. "By then the shooter could have been anywhere, just a face in the crowd. But if there was a lockdown, he would have been out of circulation."

Yes, if there would have been a lockdown on a campus of several thousand acres and 20,000-plus students and employees...

I mean, how do they not at least examine the logistics of such things before reporting them?

Steger and the VT police chief are gonna get ousted over this, and it's a shame. Could've happened on any campus, anywhere.

That's my question. Are they even digging into the logistics? The questions come off as accusatory when they don't need to be so poisonous. For a minute during that first Monday press conference, I thought the media was going to storm the podium with torches in hand and carry the university president and the police spokesperson off to the gallows.

I mean, couldn't the question be, "How many police officers would it take to lock down and secure the entire campus?" It's a simple, straightforward question. Then you can build from there. The reporters were just jumping to conclusions. I can just see them all gathered together with their collective groupthink caps on. It was sickening because tons of people watched those press conferences, and their impression is that all reporters are in your face with inflammatory statements, that reporters are always looking to nail someone.

And why, really? If anyone wins a Pulitzer for coverage of this, it isn't going to be won based upon asking angry questions based upon innuendo.

 

[FileNotFound]

A lot of papers have done great stuff. Today's my day off and I've spent part of it reading the different accounts. Looking at all of today's papers on Newseum, I am a little surprised at how little variation there is in the art. I guess I was expecting the papers in Virginia and the top national ones to have something different than the same two or three shots that every other paper in the country used.

Why? If it's the best photo, it's the best photo. On a national story, the best photo in Richmond can also be the best photo in Seattle or Peoria. Most photo editors don't have time to call 10 other photo editors and ask, "What are you running? I wanna make sure we pick something different." It's very possible that those were simply the best photos available.

 

[John]

A lot of papers have done great stuff. Today's my day off and I've spent part of it reading the different accounts. Looking at all of today's papers on Newseum, I am a little surprised at how little variation there is in the art. I guess I was expecting the papers in Virginia and the top national ones to have something different than the same two or three shots that every other paper in the country used.

Why? If it's the best photo, it's the best photo. On a national story, the best photo in Richmond can also be the best photo in Seattle or Peoria. Most photo editors don't have time to call 10 other photo editors and ask, "What are you running? I wanna make sure we pick something different." It's very possible that those were simply the best photos available.

My comment wasn't meant to be negative. I was just surprised that there wasn't more variety.

 

[RichJohnson]

A couple of notes from the ground.
Slow initial reporter response was in part caused by the weather. The high winds and snow Monday in Roanoke cancelled a lot of flights, and others were already filled with the spillover passengers BEFORE the shootings. So assignment desks quickly (and not-so-quickly) realized the best way to go was to start driving from DC. I was doing the sat-truck slalom along I-81. The big guys chartered planes from NY, and more folks spilled in on Tuesday. Hotel rooms are booked for 50 miles out, but will get real empty by Thursday as the initial network colonization backs off. Easily more sat trucks than a Super Bowl.
This is a TV booker's dream and nightmare. You gotta get the guests, and it's a 'target rich environment,' the use a horrible phrase. You have to be as aggrresive as you can without trampling over the feelings of those who've lost people. Some will surely step over the line, perhaps egged on by assignment desk folks who've never set foot inside an active tragedy.
I spent a lot of time outside the convocation Tuesday afternoon, but otherwise have stayed on the edges of the story, doing a lot of live shots for radio from my hotel room. It's the nature of the radio network beast to have one person 'front' the story while others do the digging. On this one, I'm very happy to let others cold-call victims and relatives.
Maroon and Orange is a hideous color scheme (nowhere near the glorious, beautiful green and yellow of Oregon), but I will be wearing a VT cap or shirt very soon.
RJ

 

[estreetfan75]

Good Lord Nancy Grace is there. Couldn't flip through that channel quick enough.

She had one of the first responders to the dorm shooting on tonight. He got done with his blow-by-blow of the situation he encountered with the two bodies, gun shot wounds, at the dorm hall, etc., and Nancy responds with a question about which crime scene he was at -- the dorm or the classroom hall. Pathetic.

 

[Write-brained]

A couple of notes from the ground.
Slow initial reporter response was in part caused by the weather. The high winds and snow Monday in Roanoke cancelled a lot of flights, and others were already filled with the spillover passengers BEFORE the shootings. So assignment desks quickly (and not-so-quickly) realized the best way to go was to start driving from DC. I was doing the sat-truck slalom along I-81. The big guys chartered planes from NY, and more folks spilled in on Tuesday. Hotel rooms are booked for 50 miles out, but will get real empty by Thursday as the initial network colonization backs off. Easily more sat trucks than a Super Bowl.
This is a TV booker's dream and nightmare. You gotta get the guests, and it's a 'target rich environment,' the use a horrible phrase. You have to be as aggrresive as you can without trampling over the feelings of those who've lost people. Some will surely step over the line, perhaps egged on by assignment desk folks who've never set foot inside an active tragedy.
I spent a lot of time outside the convocation Tuesday afternoon, but otherwise have stayed on the edges of the story, doing a lot of live shots for radio from my hotel room. It's the nature of the radio network beast to have one person 'front' the story while others do the digging. On this one, I'm very happy to let others cold-call victims and relatives.
Maroon and Orange is a hideous color scheme (nowhere near the glorious, beautiful green and yellow of Oregon), but I will be wearing a VT cap or shirt very soon.
RJ

Cool. Thanks for posting. Love to hear some specifics about media behavior and how the students are doing.

 

[ondeadline]

Am I the only one irritated about how TV people call the shooter's suitemate his roommate? He had only one roommate. The other guy who is making the rounds isn't his roommate, but rather his suitemate.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Am I the only one irritated about how TV people call the shooter's suitemate his roommate? He had only one roommate. The other guy who is making the rounds isn't his roommate, but rather his suitemate.

That doesn't bother me so much. Most roommates don't literally sleep in the same room as you. When I lived in a four-person apartment on campus, I said I had three roommates, even though I was literally sharing the room with one person.

 

[ondeadline]

A dorm roommate is very different from an apartment roommate in terms of living arrangements.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Interesting that none of the retrospectives on "campus shootings" have included Southern, Jackson State or Kent State.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

A dorm roommate is very different from an apartment roommate in terms of living arrangements.

But it was a dorm, an apartment dorm but a dorm all the same. I think most people understand "roommate" to mean a person who resides in a shared living environment, be it a dorm room, dorm apartment or regular apartment.