The very same conglomeration of news networks that last week fired Don Imus for uttering racially insensitive remarks this week turned over their airwaves to the deranged killer of 32 people. Victims’ families have rightfully canceled scheduled interviews with the network as a result of NBC’s decision to air what Brian Williams christened a “multimedia manifesto” (idiot), and good for them. And one lone voice in the mainstream media, mental health expert Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and ABC News consultant appearing on “Good Morning America”, calls the airing of the killer’s videos a “social catastrophe”.
“I promise you the disaffected will watch him the way they watched ‘Natural Born Killers.’ I know. I examine these people,” he said. “I’ve examined mass shooters who have told me they’ve watched it 20 times. You cannot saturate the American public with this kind of message.”
Welner maintained, however, that he was not blaming the media for airing the footage.
“It’s not an issue of blame. It’s an appeal. Please stop now. That’s all,” he said. “If you can take [talk show host Don] Imus off the air, you can certainly keep [Cho] from having his own morning show.”
“They turn themselves into icons. They get articles written about themselves in The New York Times. This is perversion. We have to send a message to alienated people, you know what? You hate everybody around you? You’re paranoid. You’re sad. You’re depressed. But these people are perverts,” Welner said.
“They’re … not powerful. He’s a weak link. He needs to create and produce his own picture in order to give himself a sense of power. Nobody saw him that way. He didn’t see himself that way and that’s why he set this up and he did this to achieve immortality. We have to stop giving him that and we can do it now.”
Amen.
