Yesterday morning I tuned in I think NBC and heard the last part of an interview with a dark-haired girl who perhaps was some campus leader, I’m not sure. Now I realize I didn’t hear the whole interview, and I realize that no one wants to hear reporters badgering survivors, but the reporter (or perhaps we should say interviewer) really dropped the ball by letting this girl make a statement and then not pressing her just a bit more. Apparently before I tuned in, the girl had mentioned something about one of her friends being missing, and her concern over this at the time. Now this interview was yesterday, a full day after the shootings, and I don’t know when she had been concerned about this missing friend. The interview was winding up when I tuned in, and the reporter was asking her, “And what about your friend that is missing?” and the girl said, with a bit of attitude in her voice, something like “I prefer not to discuss that.” and the reporter said, “okay” and then, in closing the report, extended his best wishes for her friends that were injured, and “your friend who is missing”.
Now why did he let her just dodge that? She had apparently brought up her concern over the missing friend, and apparently she now knew the fate of said friend. He should have at least said, “can you at least tell us if your friend is dead or alive?” Instead, she had this huffy attitude of “I’m not going to talk about it” when she had apparently been brought on camera because of the situation, and she was perfectly happy talking about everything else that had gone on. But to leave the audience not knowing if her found friend was found dead, injured, or just peachy, was a bit much. Her strange attitude was …strange. Did anyone else see the entire interview and can enlighten me as to what was her problem with that?
kittenblue, I totally concur with your OP. It’s bewildering to me that all of the reporting seemed to be about what policy changes need to be made, before anyone even had a handle on the basic details of what had happened (your six questions are excellent examples). I can understand that the police would have been reluctant to answer these kinds of questions prematurely, but as far as I could tell no one was even asking them.
Again, this is good. I love NPR. If it weren’t so damn depressing, I’d listen to it all the time. However, I’m sure you’ll agree that the majority of radio listeners are not listening to NPR. scotandrsn’s quote cites 28% of respondents getting news from there, but that’s not the majority. In fact, based on the numbers, I’d emphasize that local television news and newspapers need to have victims’ profiles as the lead or on the front page, above the fold.
This just in: Per Wolf Blitzer on CNN, court documents just uncovered revealed that a judge ruled Cho an imminent danger to others and mentally ill. How he ended up back on campus will be the topic of conversation for the foreseeable future.
Yes, his roomies (I think) said that they thought he was depressed and suicidal and dropped a dime on him. There is more detail on the websites. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/
Okay, now I understand. They thought the gunman was off campus, because they thought it was the victim’s boyfriend, who lived off campus. So that’s where they were looking. And in light of that, they responded as they should have: by following a lead. And I certainly never thought they should have anticipated a massacre.