NBC said that they debated internally "for hours" over whether to air the VT gunman's multimedia manifesto. That's right, whole hours. Rather than even waiting until the dead had all been buried before posthumously stroking the gunman's narcissistic ego, they decided to forge ahead and lay it all out for us in a tantalizing trickle of photos and video clips. (Speaking of narcissism, how 'bout those NBC NEWS watermarks on all the images. Classy. Neener, neener! The killer chose us and not you!) Their justification for airing the material included something about helping people who wanted to make some sort of sense out of the massacre. Right. Oh, so he was apparently a crazy monotone talking motherfucker. Now it all makes sense. Thanks, NBC, you've taken your cues from FOX NEWS well and have done the public quite a service.

I'm sure the desire to air their big scoop before the other guys had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on their decision. Nor was it that they thought viewers' interest might be waning after seeing the same old greasy head shot for 48 continuous hours.

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I know, I know, they're just doing their job and reporting the news. But by my estimation, the cable news networks have only done about an hour per day of actual news since Monday. The rest of the time is filled with recaps and "expert" opinions, over and over again. Jesus Fucking Christ, it's like the world has stopped and no other news has occurred since Monday, according the the 24/7s. I actually had a dream last night of a newspaper headline saying that news organizations were halting VT coverage for another story. Now that would be shocking news.

I mean, it's not like some 140 people were killed by bombings in Iraq just yesterday. It's not like we as a country have some culpability in the matter. But hardly a word on the matter, as far as I can tell, from the talking heads. Maybe it's because we can actually pronounce the VT victims' names, or that we can find out their life stories without venturing into a hostile environment. Maybe it's because we feel more grief from losing members of our own community, and that's certainly understandable. But to have the tragic event portrayed as though it will change everyone's lives forever is nothing short of exploiting people's fragile emotional state.

Maybe this is wrong of me, but I'm seriously more disgusted by the TV news media's crass circlejerk response to the killings than the killings themselves. Unconscionable murders by psychopaths are a gravely unfortunate facet of human existence, and there's probably no way to ever avoid such incidents. I would hope, however, that we could avoid sensational coverage of such events by those that are tasked, ostensibly at least, with providing the public with a rational and metered account of what happened... Wow, I feel like a naive fool for even typing that last sentence.