no words

When I was watching the coverage of the VA Tech shootings yesterday, I was struck by how difficult it was for newscasters to convey the "seriousness" of these shootings. Inevitably, their descriptions ended up sounding almost trite and cliched (although I know this was not their intention). Shooting, Massacre, Slaughter, Carnage, Mayhem, Havoc, Chaos, Violence. These words do very little to describe the indescribable violence of this event. The newscasters then tried to put the event into context, first labeling it as "one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history" and then, as the number of dead began to rise, "the deadliest massacre in modern U.S. history." Comparisons were made to Columbine and the Luby's Cafeteria shooting in 1991. CNN showed the student cell phone video over and over again. And the newscasters struggled for words. I was almost glad to see them struggling to find the right words; it means that an event like this does not happen often, and when it does, we still have difficulty processing and understanding what has happened.

Here's a link to Slate.com's daily news roundup, which links to many of the major news stories on the events: http://www.slate.com/id/2164357/fr/flyout

And here's an article about how students have turned to the online community to comfort each other: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-web17apr17,1,3926754,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage