Mass Media’s Obsession with Mass Murder Or Looking Beyond Virginia Tech

What is the point of gaining notoriety if you are not going to stay alive and bask in the glory?  What is so cool about suicide? You only get to go out in a blaze of cowardice.  Why send a manifesto and video if you are not going to be around to revel and rejoice in your own grotesque comedy masquerading as a tragedy?  These are some the questions that I would to ask the shooter if we were sitting across from each other eating lunch in some out of the way dinner. 

Anyone who gets 15 minutes of fame should want to be recognized for his accomplishments.  He should want to see himself on the small screen and walk to the courthouse to hear the jeers.  More importantly, he should be able to clearly articulate the reasons that the world owes him something and that he should be allowed to extricate payment through death.  Unlike serial killers, spree killers are able to grab immediate public attention for themselves though there is no long term glory.

This too is one of the stumbling blocks for all serial killers.  They are unable to fully enjoy their accomplishments because they cannot let anyone know what they are doing or it will all end.  Yet, they desperately need to be acknowledged for their ability to outwit the police and other pursuers.  However, their obsessive, compulsive inadequacies drive them to seek the attention that will be their ultimate demise. Ironies of ironies.

Yet, serial killers driving need for approbation and appreciation for their superiority is far more important to their psyche than the monstrous murders and rapes that they carry out to prove that they are not inadequate and impotent: a drain on society.

Profilers and psychologist may argue with the simplicity of this premise and point out its short comings, but the interviews with these men bears these ideas out.  Ted Bundy basked in his role as expert and tried to manipulate all his taped sessions refusing to reveal too much not because he was afraid to give away his secrets, but because, he was afraid that the klieg lights would never return.  It is narcissism at its most pure and unadulterated.

Our Korean friend bears witness to this fact with his package being mailed to NBC.  He knows full well that the media’s need for ratings under the guise of news will get his picture plastered all over the air ways.  They will migrate from television to the internet in a matter of nanoseconds and live on perpetually as electronic impulses that resurface on U Tube whenever there is a new spree killing.  He may not be able to enjoy it, but we will.

How different would Ted Bundy’s killing be if he knew that his crimes would be floating effortlessly from household to household?  You may say that the early beheadings during the Iraq War have become passé and that we don’t seek them out with the same regularity, but anyone who wants to perpetrate that same crime can use them as a blueprint.  How easy it is to view and get insight into how to carry out your version of that crime. 

What is more revolting and disquieting is the idea that these creatures film their atrocities for the voyeurs of the world.  As we have all become aware, through crime drama and real life murder shows, these people keep trophies of their crimes, and digital videos and pictures are a perfect trophy.  I predict that it will only be a matter of time before one of these individuals sends pictures of their crimes over the internet to celebrate their mental and physical superiority.

I was disappointed that our Virginia Tech murderer relied on classic 20^th century technology to get his ideas out: snail mail.  It reveals the level of his own impotence and lack of understanding of the power of the web.  Other modern day terrorists seem to clearly understand the power of words and pictures as they stream unfiltered across our computer screens.  He evidently was unable to fathom this concept.  As with the news media, once this idea reaches critical mass, we will be desensitized to its power and it will no longer hold any sway.

Until that day, expect the internet to be inundated with mass mailings of unrestricted words and pictures revealing the devastation brought on by the most heinous acts of humankind.  Television news may presently act as a filter, but that is only a ploy.  It will be the news media through the internet that exploits the next wave of national and international terroristic acts of violence and aggression as a means of gaining fame, notoriety, market share, and profit.

Denver, Sandy Hook and the Navy shipyard are the latest obsessions for our media organizations.  As I write this, there are more than five new atrocities that are being broadcast on American television under the guise of journalism. Murder sells. I am not talking about the fictional worlds of Dexter or Breaking Bad.

News programs need to make money. They need to keep and grow viewership so that they can raise ad revenue. Murder is the name of the game. Whether it is as bad as it seems, it matters not. News organizations are looking as hard for death as a looky-loo is looking for blood at a traffic accident; therefore, mass murder or serial murders work in their favor. It does seem to me that mass murder has taken a commanding lead with television news because of it immediacy and the multiple angles which can be exploited to keep the story in the news cycle.