overwhelmed and guilty

so i've been watching cnn all evening and i was checking the cnn website every 15 minutes or so all day because i can't tear myself away from the tragedy at virginia tech. stuff like this really affects me. i'm drawn to disasters like this not because i'm a sucker for human suffering. i just feel like if i can share in their pain, maybe it will help them to know that even strangers are mourning with them. does that even make sense? and i think that this is extra hard because i am a university student. this could have just as easily happened here.

but after all the coverage i've been watching/reading on this, it's really starting to get to me. i'm feeling overwhelmed and i need a break. but that makes me feel guilty. because the VT students don't get a break. they will never get a break. they'll go home for the summer, come back in the fall and it will still be there. 20 years from now, it will still be there for them. so the least i can do is try to share in their story.

or is that strange and voyeuristic to sit here watching hours of cnn? is that just encouraging the "if it bleeds, it leads" style of brodcasting that i hate? is cnn covering this because they really do want to tell the students' stories? or are they just doing it because they know if they don't, no one will be watching cnn?

i've always had little to no love for the news media. after my experiences with the media in high school, i felt that it was a totally corrupt system led by ratings hungry news stations just looking to make money at anyone's expence. they put their spin on a story to make it more interesting without bothering to find out the actual facts, or just tell the necessary ones.

lately, however, i've started to come around a little bit. it's definitely still all about ratings [obviously, its a business] but there are reporters who care. my fondness for anderson cooper over the last year or so has caused me to watch a lot more news with a more open mind. anderson seems to actually care. maybe he's playing the biggest game of all, but he plays it well and has most people fooled. he cries and yells and gets worked up on camera so that's good enough for me. i actually think he cares. through my AC360 watching, i've gotten to "know" other cnn personalities and i think i've gotten pretty good at seperating the bullshitters from the sincere.

the unfortunate thing is i still have no love for my local news teams. they all seem fake to me. i read the paper for local news. which has its own problems. we'll save that for another post at another time.