I shed a tear watching this

[Autistamatic]

I just came across this in my Twitter feed and I genuinely was moved by it. Waleed Aly, Australian newscaster, reacting to the horrors in Christchurch. This is not about politics or religion - it's about humanity.

 

[Mary Terry]

It was a horrific massacre of innocent good people. I'm reading news stories that the murderers did it and filmed it in order to post it on social media. New Zealand is vowing to change their gun laws to make it harder for people to obtain guns. Our world is sick. The religious zealots are out of control.

 

[Starfire]

Since when did news channels have music playing in the background during reports, designed to elicit emotions from viewers?

I don’t remember ever seeing that before, certainly not with the reports of ISIS raping and murdering in huge numbers, or any other terrorist atrocities being reported around the world on a regular basis.

I would prefer it if news programs just reported the facts and left out the cynical attempts at inducing emotion, it has no effect on me and leaves me suspicious as to the pre-planned motivation and comes across as fake, to me.

 

[Starfire]

It was a horrific massacre of innocent good people. I'm reading news stories that the murderers did it and filmed it in order to post it on social media. New Zealand is vowing to change their gun laws to make it harder for people to obtain guns. Our world is sick. The religious zealots are out of control.

I’m not surprised, you know what they say, “never let a good crisis go to waste!” The same thing happened in the UK after some horrific lone crazy man shootings. The gun laws were changed now the only people with easy and unfettered access to cheap firearms, are criminals and gangsters!

 

[Autistamatic]

Since when did news channels have music playing in the background during reports, designed to elicit emotions from viewers?

I don’t remember ever seeing that before, certainly not with the reports of ISIS raping and murdering in huge numbers, or any other terrorist atrocities being reported around the world on a regular basis.

I would prefer it if news programs just reported the facts and left out the cynical attempts at inducing emotion, it has no effect on me and leaves me suspicious as to the pre-planned motivation and comes across as fake, to me.

The version uploaded to twitter was from the original broadcast and is without the music. The versions on YouTube have been added to unfortunately, but the content and the sentiment are equally valid.

 

[Judge]

I just thought of this all as particularly cruel given it appears that a very peaceful and kind country and people were chosen for such an attack. Heartbreaking...

Being on the "Ring of Fire", Christchurch has enough to worry about with Mother Nature alone.

 

[Weirdo]

The version uploaded to twitter was from the original broadcast and is without the music. The versions on YouTube have been added to unfortunately, but the content and the sentiment are equally valid.

I think you was mistaken as the original version uploaded to Twitter by The Project also has the background music.


The Project on Twitter

'I'm gutted': Australian TV host's plea for unity goes viral after terror attacks

 

[Mary Terry]

The internet should be scrubbed of all vestiges of the live recording. No one should look at that, click on it, or reinforce those monsters' infamy. How additionally horrible for survivors and loved ones of the victims to know that those violent deaths are deliberately available for public viewing.

As to the media's efforts to snag viewers - I first realized the TV stations had developed theme music for historical events unfolding before my eyes during the Gulf War, President George Bush the First, early 1990's I think, about 30 years ago. Media's efforts to sensationalize and market bad news have been around for a long time.

 

[Fino]

And the sort of awful words he quoted is the kind of thing I hear from my family, in a desperate attempt to be relevant after all previous, nobler attempts have failed, to make way for the easy, egotistical route of bigotry. I wonder how common it is that reasons like this explain extremist ideologies.

 

[Autistamatic]

I think you was mistaken as the original version uploaded to Twitter by The Project also has the background music.


The Project on Twitter

'I'm gutted': Australian TV host's plea for unity goes viral after terror attacks

That's not the version I originally saw. Someone had filmed their TV set. The second time it came up in my timeline was a different recording too. I suppose it must have been uploaded by several people and most have used the version with music.
Frankly, the added music us unnecessary and is clearly distracting some people from the emotional reaction and the sound sense being spoken, condemning all acts of this tragic nature, whoever they are committed by and whatever the excuse for their violence.

 

[Starfire]

That's not the version I originally saw. Someone had filmed their TV set. The second time it came up in my timeline was a different recording too. I suppose it must have been uploaded by several people and most have used the version with music.
Frankly, the added music us unnecessary and is clearly distracting some people from the emotional reaction and the sound sense being spoken, condemning all acts of this tragic nature, whoever they are committed by and whatever the excuse for their violence.

What I find interesting, is that someone didn’t think that “condemning all acts of this tragic nature” was enough, and decided it needed a little help.

Someone got this news clip, and this certainly wasn’t recorded from a TV. They most probably browsed through a library of royalty free ‘elevator’ music for a piece which rose and fell at the right times to emphasise the reporter getting choked up. They then went to the trouble to edit the music into the report using software to get the volume and emotion just right. It was then uploaded somewhere it would spread like wildfire, where people would be more likely to be subjected to their emotions than to ask why they didn’t simply upload the news story. Someone went to a lot of trouble, why?

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, naive or sentimental, but I find this strange.

If one goes to bbc news today - Home - BBC News

There is not even a mention of this, it isn’t newsworthy enough even for a small paragraph (at the time of writing this post) Christchurch is still the leading story -
Cyclone Idai leaves trail of death, destruction in Mozambique, Zimbabwe | Africanews

At least 126 dead and many thousands displaced, on the same day as the Christchurch massacre. It seems ‘acts of god’ don’t warrant the same attention or emotions as the killing of followers of god.

 

[Autistamatic]

Deadly cyclone tears into Zimbabwe

It was the 2nd to top story on the BBC News main page, under the Christchurch story last night.

Of course the Christchurch massacre arouses stronger emotions. It was an act of cruelty, a mass murder streamed live on the internet. A deranged human taking the lives of other humans.
Whilst the consequences of the African cyclone are no less tragic for the victims, the sheer cruelty of the Christchurch attacks and others that have come before it, whoever committed them and no matter the ideology they claim as their motivation, has shocked the world.

 

[Starfire]

It’s not the second story on bbc news main page. It’s buried under news/world/Africa where it is the second story but it has to looked for, its not even anywhere on world news page.

I suppose I’m just struggling to understand why this admittedly dreadful and cruel event, undertaken by a deranged murderer is any different, or worse than the countless acts which went before, and will be repeated again and again in the future no doubt.

It’s not even the first time a terrorist event has been live-streamed.
The filming and uploading of beheadings by knife and other such atrocities have been happening for a few years now. I seem to remember a terrorist in France live-streaming killing a couple of years ago.

As for shocking the world, I’m afraid it doesn’t shock me anymore and I doubt I’m the only one. It doesn’t even surprise me anymore. There is so much of this evil going on in the world, mostly under the cover of religion that I have become desensitised to it and feel that I watch such events as a detached observer. It doesn’t arouse any emotion or sentiment in me, somewhere along the line I’ve switched that off.

 

[Autistamatic]

It’s not the second story on bbc news main page. It’s buried under news/world/Africa where it is the second story but it has to looked for, its not even anywhere on world news page.

I said it was last night - not right now. It also came up on my wife's Google news feed at around the time I first saw it.

I think the shock over Christchurch is because yet again a preventable tragedy for which we all bear a measure of responsibility, has caused misery and loss to innocent people.

"How dare you say I am responsible" some will say.

We bear responsibility for voting in ineffective and/or bigoted leaders.
We bear responsibility for harbouring prejudices of our own.
We bear responsibility for allowing the media the world over to feed us lies and for believing them.
We bear responsibility for allowing profit to become more sacred than life.
We bear responsibility for turning a blind eye when we are not personally affected.
We bear responsibility when we buy goods from companies which support regimes that torture, imprison and murder their own citizens.
We bear responsibility when we believe people to be trustworthy and incorruptible because of their position in state or church.
We bear responsibility when we answer accusations with counter accusations rather than fixing ourselves.
We bear responsibility when we don't respond to bigotry.
We bear responsibility when we support fighting hate with more hate.

No single person in this world is free of some measure of responsibility for events like this, however small their contribution may be, and until we all face up to that fact and start doing something about it, massacres will continue to happen.
The world is broken - yes, but it is us that broke it. It is us who must put it back together or face the consequences of our own making.

 

[Starfire]

We do not “all bear a measure of responsibility” for the actions of a mentally unstable white supremacy murderer. There is one person only who allegedly is responsible for the killings and that is Brenton Tarrant.

As for the list of what every single person in the world bears some measure of responsibility for, I see it is all negative. We must also bear responsibility for the good and beauty in the world too surely?

 

[Autistamatic]

We must also bear responsibility for the good and beauty in the world too surely?

We do enough of that already. It is the shameful aspects of our society that we avoid accepting our collective culpability for, therefore the only ones mentioned.
WE are responsible for the society we live in - every single one of us bar none. That society creates such monstrous people. Until we change that society through our actions, our votes, our faith and collective will to be better people, we must accept that we all share some responsibility for the actions of those we deplore. Failing to do so or arguing against it contributes even further to our collective shame.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" as a certain middle-eastern gentleman once said. It's a lesson we still haven't learned properly.

 

[Starfire]

Would that be the same middle-eastern gentleman who said in Matthew 34

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”