The Office Shooting du Jour
Right, fragmented attention spans. Very important ...
I'd like to comment on that, but I'm watching CNN at the moment and can't
concentrate. The Seattle police have just put out an APB for the suspect in the
office shooting du jour (one dead so far, two critical, one stable). The
suspect, a man of course, was wearing a brown hat, according to the police
account. And camouflage clothes. Aside from that, he looked pretty
average--average height, hair color, skin color (police said he was either a
white guy or a light-skinned black guy). Horribly, what he's done is starting
to sound pretty average, too: He went into an office building (want to bet it's
his?) and opened fire. The television coverage is all too average as well: Lots
of Johnny on the spots, excitedly telling what they know "at this point" (not
much) and second-guessing themselves by telling TV Land which neighborhood the
police are searching, then showing the neighborhood from a helicopter, then
deciding that it was a boneheaded move to show where, exactly, the police are
hunting (let's not let the shooter know where the cops are!). and zipping over
to another Johnny on the spots who doesn't know much. At this point.
Ah, is there anything that's at once so exhilarating and banal as breaking
news? I know that sounds callous and I apologize--someone is dead, perhaps
others will be too soon--but stories like this are far and away the worst thing
that we in the media do. Remember when we were both junior reporters at
Newsday , doing far too much police news, knocking on the doors of the
dead and the near dead? And remember that time when that lady hissed at you?
"VULTURE," she hissed. We are vultures ... We feed off dead things and help the
overall process of decomposition. Why am I watching this broadcast? Why is it
national news? What good does it do? Where's the public need to know here?
Won't it just inspire another nut to gun down his officemates? Or schoolmates?
Then he can be on CNN, too.
Oh, cool: Video footage just came on showing the cops storming a house with
one of those SWAT shields. This is getting good. See you at dinner. Gotta
go.
