Comments on: Manhunt at Virginia Tech

By: Concerned

Concerned — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:40:30 +0000

Media Bumble?

I like to think that most people do their jobs to best of their abilities with the resources available. I also believe, because of the wonderful freedoms we enjoy, that our society is constantly forced to accept balance as a way of life. We must, as a society, accept “in balance” the tasteful with the distasteful, the bad with the good, tolerance with intolerance and, so on. In a country like ours I believe utopia is impossible to achieve. So then, I ask, concerning the killings at Virginia Tech, why wasn’t the news networks which pride themselves on being at news worthy scenes first, at the first murder scene in a timely manner? From my humble point of view, any early morning broadcast the network would have made would have supplemented the school’s efforts to inform the community of a disturbance. The media would have then been present to capture, first hand, the unfortunate subsequent event. Instead, I heard one televised news network asking for eyewitness cell phone videos and then later, heard the media questioning why more couldn’t have been done to notify the students by the security system that was already in place. I think more could have been done if other professionals were doing a better job too.

By: Cil

Cil — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 03:13:08 +0000

I just noticed the date on the previous comments…crazy how there were two incidents in the same school year.

By: Tom Markiewicz

Tom Markiewicz — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:11:06 +0000

@Carlos – this blog post was from the incident last year. I have a new post regarding today at http://www.tmarkiewicz.com/virginia-tech-tragedy/

By: carlos

carlos — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:49:53 +0000

I think its interesting that there is no information on the cable news about an escaped inmate.

carlos

By: Tom Markiewicz » Virginia Tech Tragedy

Tom Markiewicz » Virginia Tech Tragedy — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:54:21 +0000

[...] What a horrible day. I’ve received several inquires today from a couple mainstream media outlets (CBS Evening News, Washington Post) regarding the tragedy that has unfolded today at Virginia Tech. A blog post I wrote on the last shooting that occurred in August 2006 has been getting a lot of traffic today as everyone has been scrambling for news as the events unfolded in Blacksburg. [...]

By: Cil

Cil — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:28:20 +0000

I saw this on the news but they didnt have much info. I have a friend that goes there and he’s been frusterated with classes. At least I know he didnt flip out and go postal.

By: Tom Markiewicz » The new Netscape is a joke

Tom Markiewicz » The new Netscape is a joke — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:00:58 +0000

[...] The morning of the shooting in Blacksburg, Virginia I wrote a post that I updated during the day briefly chronicling the events as they occurred and my personal perspective as a professional working in Blacksburg. It was not meant to be a major journalistic piece, just a blog post from a citizen. Just for the heck of it, I decided to try posting the link to Netscape to see how the new Digg clone worked. Later that day I noticed significant traffic coming from Netscape and was pleasantly surprised. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as some were making it out. I have no idea why anyone would use Netscape instead of Digg; but hey, who am I to complain when I’m getting some additional traffic that wouldn’t otherwise be there. [...]

By: Tom Markiewicz

Tom Markiewicz — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:13:54 +0000

I updated my original post above with information I was not aware of at the time of my first posting.

By: Tom Markiewicz

Tom Markiewicz — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:47:38 +0000

BTW, here\’s the email I received at 8:13am with the subject line \”Emergency Advisory\”:

The escaped prisoner from the Montgomery County Jail has been spotted on the Virginia Tech campus in the vicinity of the Huckleberry Trail and Tech
Center Drive. He is armed and dangerous. For safety, the police have barricaded the south side of campus. Employees working anywhere south of
Washington Street including the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center are advised not to come to work and if already at work, to remain in the
building.

By: Tom Markiewicz

Tom Markiewicz — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:45:12 +0000

Good point, but I think you\’re making a connection here that absolutely doesn\’t exist. Town of Blacksburg does not equal Virginia Tech. These are two separate entities and don\’t necessarily operate in conjunction. I received two degrees from Tech and I could write forever about how they run the place sometimes!

I received an email around 8am with an emergency warning about the situation and what was being done on campus. I can\’t possibly know what the administration knew or didn\’t know, but from what I\’ve read it still appears to me that the proper precautions were taken when information became more available as to what was actually happening.

If anyone has more information on this or thinks I\’m off base, please leave a comment.