Media doesn’t cover all crises fairly
As the nation is inundated by the conventional news networks with nearly 24 hour coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, I can’t help but feel let down and ashamed of American news media. American media grabs a hold of a news story they think will get them ratings while completely disregarding their true purpose, to inform. By no means am I making the argument that the Virginia Tech shootings were anything other than a national tragedy, however this all needs to be viewed in perspective.
According to the United Nations, on average 94 Iraqi civilians were “violently killed” every day in Iraq last year. That’s nearly three times the number at Virginia Tech, every day! These are men, women, children and yes, even college students who were just as innocent as the victims from VT. The genocide in Darfur is even worse. According to a U.N. study, over 70,000 civilians were killed in a six month period of time.
For those of you who don’t want to do the math, that’s around 389 human beings being massacred on a daily basis.
Although the above listed tragedies have certainly been covered in the news, they haven’t elicited anywhere near the attention that the VT shootings have. Why is this? I would hope the real problem lies with the media and not the hearts of the American people. Are we truly this nationalistic and uncaring? That’s a question only you can answer.
– Ryan Walsh, Graduate Student,
Biological Sciences
Abortion truly worthy of being called a holocaust
I am compelled to respond to the letter “Gruesome display doesn’t do any good.” In response to the bloodiness of abortions, the author states “If we prohibited surgeries based on grossness, many life-saving procedures would not exist.” To which I say that abortion is not a ‘life-saving’ procedure, but a life-ending procedure. The author then goes on to decry the fact that abortion clinics are required, by law, to provide patients a photo booklet of fetal development, funded by the taxpayer no less, 24 hours prior to the procedure. The author succinctly concludes, “It doesn’t work.” Apparently the author doesn’t believe in providing information to those about to commit to a life-altering decision.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose. If those photos convince even one woman to not have an abortion, then they are entirely worthwhile.
Since 1973, over 40 million children have been killed through abortion. Let me say that again, 40,000,000 American children have been executed since 1973. Since 1977 there have been 1,059 executions of those convicted of capital offenses in the U.S. A mass murderer can expect to live for decades on the tax payers dime, benefiting from appeal after appeal, before justice is finally, painstakingly, completely free of cruel and inhuman forms of execution, carried out. And yet, 40 million children were cruelly eviscerated and vacuumed out of the womb for being guilty of nothing more than the crime of ‘being unwanted’. Abortion is truly the American holocaust.
– Brian Meyers, Senior, Accounting
