Rarely is an event as throughtly covered as the Virginia Tech tragedy. Nearly every news web page is plastered with stories related to the event, making the idea of “total coverage” overwhelming for many. Here, we’ll showcase what many news sources are making of this event and give you some perspective on exactly how much coverage is too much. When students want news, CNN.com is still the ruling news source, and by far, the site has been the leader in coverage of this event. For example, the site has been cycling through images of victims for the past few hours:

Stories are emerging of the 32 extraordinary lives which ended in the horror and heroism of the Virginia Tech campus massacre. In this special report, families, friends, colleagues and classmates share poignant memories of those killed in the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The people these stories speak of were characterized by great promise and outstanding achievement.

Additionally, CNN has front page links to related stories, which almost completely take up the top stories area. These links were all consectutive on the listing, and one would be hard pressed to find an angle they havent covered:

-Tech victim’s family fights to tell his story
-Columbine survivor: Emotional roller coaster ahead
-When is it OK to put a student away?
-Virginia Tech student hears of friend’s death via IM
And, of course, someone trying to pin the blame on video games:
-Survey: Violent video games ‘exhilarating’ escapism
…While even the entertainment pages contain stories related to the shooting:
-1 of killer’s photos resembles movie image

Most news paper sites are tossing their attention toward the shooting, while allowing attorney general Gonzalez’s to fall at a close second. Boston.com has this headline and image as their front page, with the site clearly struggling for filler in their use of a “flip flop controversy” as the main regional story:

GLOBE REGIONALS   Flip flop flap attracts attention at Westford school A principal’s attempt to discourage students from sporting open-toed footwear kicked up controversy at the Stony Brook School. (Janet Knott / Globe Staff Photo) YOUR VIEW: Flip flops at school?

Virginia Tech aftermath Classmates: Shooter was laughed at Their accounts could shed light on Cho’s state of mind. (AP, 5:06 p.m.) Calif. school district closes for threat Man barred from BU for threats

Not surprisingly, the coverage of the shooting is more heavily covered by the American news papers than their foreign counterparts. At the same time, it’s still a breaking story, and with that as such, even the BBC.com front page is dusted with stories steming from the shooting. At this time, the breaking of the killer’s so called “video manifesto” is the front page story:

Police ‘regret’ at killer’s video Officers probing the shootings at Virginia Tech say footage of killer Cho Seung-hui should not have been broadcast. Virginia shootings: The victims Transcript: Gunman’s message Video worries locals

This image was on the main page’s sidebar, with the caption:

Inside Cho’s mind
How Virginia Tech killer fits pattern of campus gunmen

Overall, the coverage of this event is certainly overwealming, and has certainly raised a lot of questions about tact and what proper journalistic practices are. If one looks at the evidence above, they can see that these things get out of hand faster than a fis full of jello. In the end, it’s up to the editor and the reader to decide what’s right and wrong, so what’s your opinion?

Check out this video posted on WarrenEllis.com: it’s the music vid for
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s “Thou Shalt Always Kill” and it’s brilliant:

According to this story in today’s Daily Collegian “about half of full-time college students abuse drugs and alcohol.” One look at the campus on a weekend, and you can tell that UMass is not a dry campus, but how bad could it be? If the website ZooMassDrunks is any indication, then our alchoholic peers have the dicipline of a kleptomaniac in a blind womans house. Take a gander at a couple pictures from the aforementioned site, selected by UMass’ own Courtney Souza:

Souza went on to searching for UMass’ alcohol-centered groups, and Lord, does the infamous college networking site Facebook, have a ton of groups devoted to drinking. And if being a card-carrying member of “AA=Alcohol Appreciation” isnt you bag, there are likewise, a bevy of anti-drinking groups as well. Notable examples include “i can only have fun when i’m sober” and, you guessed it, the “Straight Edge” group.

Drinking is an appropriate topic for publication today, what with April being Alchohol Awareness Month, and it’s lead students to question their peers as to what their drinking/drugging habits are like.

Additionally, organizations are popping up left and right into order to retard this rise in drug use. UMass has people like “The Campus and Community Coalition to Reduce High Risk Drinking” who are attempting to curb this trend, but all the while, UMass Police are increasing their presence in dorms. (Thanks to Scott Brodeur for the links)

Statistically, drinking has been on the rise for a while. According to these statistics, collected by Tara Quist: “From 1993 to 2005, there has been no significant reduction in the levels of drinking and binge drinking among college students. In 2005, 67.9 percent of
students (approximately 5.3 million students) reported drinking in the past
month and 40.1 percent (approximately 3.1 million students) reported binge
drinking.” This same study also purported that abuse of prescription drugs is also on the rise with a “342.9 percent increase” between 1993 and 2005″. Also, UMass did a survey in 2003 that stated much the same findings.

Many UMass students have a lot to say about drinking:

Devon Courtney went to UMass’ Campus Center, and questioned students on the above topic. Click here to see his report.

To see what UMass students drink preferences are, see this story by Daryl.

You can also, check out the raw audio of Mike and Devon’s interviews here: WS_30011.WMA

While here, take into consideration the testimony of one Ryan Gibbons, an avid drinker, who said much of his first hand experiences. Why is Ryan different from any other drinker?

Need i say more?

I’ve been enjoying podcasts for a few years now, so an assignment where i review 2 original podcasts makes all those hours of listening seem purposeful. The idea of a portable “radio” broadcast came in handy when my iPod still worked, and was even more appealing during adderall fueled all-nighters. When you’re up all night, a good way to both relax and remember what the time is involves kicking back and listening to a timestamped news brief. So here’s a review of my 2 favorite podcasts:

Brainwashed Radio’s weekly podcast was the first podcast I fell in love with, and i continue to listen to it to this day. Stemming from parent site, Brainwashed.com, a Boston based online publication devoted to “eclectic music” this podcast consists of a single, hour long audio recording made for the express purpose of spreading good music showcased on Brainwashed. Brainwashed started as a means of hosting permanent web pages for many independent bands, and soon branched out to contain things like a video section, titled The Eye, as well as CD reviews. They then started a streaming radio station
and from there began the podcast. Many of my favorite bands are featured on Brainwashed’s podcast: including Low, The Legendary Pink Dots, Arab Strap, Coil, Antony and the Johnsons and Do Make Say Think, among others. If you’re sick of pop music and radio in general, but don’t mind listening to post-folk, psy-trance and a little Japanese noise, then this podcast is right for you.

My second podcast is the legendarily convenient NPR hourly news summary, a brilliant example of how timely a pre-recorded podcast can be. Updated on the hour, every hour, this podcast is great because it supplies the listening with news as it’s happening at any given hour of the day. If you’ve got a spare minute before class, you can know the news. Better yet, NPR is amazing because they see beyond the specialized news-feeds like CNN, which report American news first, and instead give priority to reporting world news first. While NPR certainly has a liberal spin to what news they report. This can be demonstrated by the reporting of negative news from Iraq and Iran alongside growing reports of global warming concerns. At the same time, unlike Lindsay Lohan’s drug addiction, these issues matter, so they merit more attention.

It’s amazing how quickly podcasts took off. I’d first heard of them from Warren Ellis, actually. He took a few stabs at podcasts, via songs he’d gotten from MySpace, ironically. Since then, way too many podcasts have jumped up, but as long as you’re willing to shuffle through a lot of mess, you can find some seriously worthwhile content.