TAKING A POSITION OF ACCOUNTABILITY -- ONE PERSON AT A TIME

[janereinheimer]

TAKING A POSITION OF ACCOUNTABILITY -- ONE PERSON AT A TIME

Mountains are made up of millions and millions of tiny little pebbles, all wedged in together.

People who live in a society remind me, in some ways, of those little pebbles on the mountain. We all kind of fit together and form something really big.

We reach for the stars above us. We rest on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and blazed trails that give us providence.

It's not that I spend my days waxing poetic thoughts, but when I heard that the parents of a survivor cancelled their appearance on NBC -- sorry, don't even know their names -- because of the footage of the videotape the shooter had sent to NBC being aired.

It is an incredibly honorable thing for them to do that. They didn't want their kiddo to be subjected to the rants of this horrible person.

Did NBC need to show that video over and over and over? Absolutely not.

Did we need to watch a very unstable murderer blame his victims for everything that had gone wrong in his life that left him feel persecuted, eventually murderous? Absolutely not.

Did NBC have a "right" to show the video? Sure they did. It was their property because the shooter had mailed it to NBC. According to the postmark, he mailed it in between the first shootings and the second about two hours later.

So what did he do in that two hour gap? Well, the authorities are trying to put those time pieces together.

But for a national broadcasting news service to give a multiple mass murderer a forum to air his discontent is outrageous. In my view.

Kudos to the parents of the survivor who didn't want to be a part of such a dishonorable thing.

The survivors are the ones who deserve to be honored for the courage of the ordeal they went through. The families of the victims deserve to be honored for the horrific tragedy they are enduring.

But for NBC to take the position that the "public has the right to know -- or see this" is the height of tastelessness. Or worse.

That's just my own opinion. I'll bet there are many who disagree with me. And you're entitled to your opinion. If you do, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Honor is always a good thing to see rising to the top.

News scoops are down there at the bottom, close to trash in this instance.

But as Quint says, "Gee, Jane, what do you really think about that?"

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