On CNN: Double Standards

The Virginia Tech Shootings

As I write, Dana and I (here in Romania) are watching the breaking news of the shooting at Virginia Tech on CNN. At least 22 are dead and another 29 wounded. Students are among those shot but there is no word yet on how many were students. This is still early on, and information is still coming in. The gunman is dead. Reporters are interviewing students and police who have witnessed this tragedy. The school has been shut down. Students in a lock down while police search the rest of the campus.

Again and again, as we watch, the reporters emphasize that this is the ‘Deadliest campus shooting in US history’.

The president of Virginia Tech has given a briefing where he spoke of this as a ‘Monumental’ tragedy. The Whitehouse has said that President Bush is ‘horrified’ by the shootings. The reporters again and again speak of this as ‘mind boggling and shocking’. They speak of the situation as ‘utter terror and panic’, ‘Mass chaos’.

Now a reporter is interviewing a police officer by phone and they are talking about the possibility of a need for ‘airport type security’ on campuses in the US.

Now they are playing again a video taken by a student who was outside the building at the time of the shootings. In the video, shots are ringing out and the police are surrounding the building.
And they play it again.



This saddens me. It really saddens me. But you see, the thing which makes me really sad goes beyond this incident. Yes this is horrible. It is a tragedy. But the thing which gets me is the blatant double standards by which this type of incident is reported.

I don’t mean to take this incident lightly or to dismiss it, but this, like the infamous attack on 9/11, is being played over and over again. The shock of the students, police, and even the reporters is evident. It all goes to enhance the feeling of tragedy – and rightly so.

The problem is that this tragedy – and it is a terrible tragedy, nothing will change that – is being reported as if it is more of a tragedy than any of the other tragedies where tens and even hundreds of people die at once, yet happen not to have lived in the United States.

Somehow, some people are made to be more important than others. Some seem to deserve extended reporting where the shock and terror of the situation is apparent, while others simply get a footnote on the screen along with the sports and weather.

Last year, bombs went off in Varanasi at a famous temple and at the train station. Hundreds died or were injured. If I remember correctly, it hardly made it into the international news. No one at home knew, except for the fact that we just so happened to have been living in the city and almost walked into a place where bombs had actually been set. (They did not go off due to the heroism of a passing electrician).


Of course, if we know someone who has died suddenly (especially if they were a loved one), their death will affect us much more than when someone dies whom we didn’t know – It’s only human nature.

In addition, it is natural not to be surprised or shocked by violent deaths in a place where that has become common – such as in Iraq or even in the American inner cities.

But this should not take away from the fact that it is a terrible tragedy when anyone dies in violence. On top of this, CNN, like all other news organizations, is supposed to be objective – to share the facts objectively. Of course, we are only human and can't handle the details and emotion of every death. But the truth is that the way the facts are chosen – by relevance – shows what (and who) is really important to us.


Having lived outside the US for several years has helped me to see this double standard which goes on in reporting all the time. Some people are more valuable than others – especially the rich and powerful. And make no mistake about it, middle class Americans are (by world standards) rich and powerful.

Of course I recognize that this is not the truth of things – I recognize that everyone is equally valuable, simply on the basis that they are people, loved by God.

But the greatest tragedy here, beyond the fact that at least 32 people have now died at Virginia Tech (the number has changed even in the time of writing this), the greatest tragedy here is that one person’s death is seen as being more tragic than another’s – that one is more important than another, simply because of the accident of their birth in a certain time, place, race, and/or economic status.


I don't want to bring this up in an accusing manner. My point is that we should become aware of the fact that we too have hidden biases. When we know, we can change.

God sees all people with love. The question is - when will you and I learn to too?


In closing I want to share something which struck me at the time I read it, and says this powerfully.



"Fifteen thousand Africans dying each and every day, of preventable, treatable diseases—AIDS, malaria, TB—for lack of drugs that we take for granted."

"This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening in Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern, and questions our commitment to that whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not in North America, or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept their lives—African lifes—are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth."

"We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies—but will we be that generation? ...It’s up to us."

- Bono (U2) from his introduction to 'The End Of Poverty'