Matt Peckham wrote an excellent post Friday which touches on the status of this country, our stance on violence, video games and sexuality, citing Tom Brokaw’s remarks that video games and blogs were “cancerous.”
Talking to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Brokaw reacted to the shooting at the Nebraska mall in a way that I simply consider dangerous, especailly for someone who calls himself a journalist and a free-speech advocate.
HH: Do you not think it’s going to incite other people to try to do the same thing?
TB: No, I don’t. I think…to get back to something we were talking about earlier in general thematic terms, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job about talking about violence in this country, either. You know, Virginia Tech went away. We didn’t have any ongoing dialogue in our communities or on the air about the corrosive effect of violence. It was not what he, what people saw of him on the air that will drive them, it’s what they read in blog sites, and what they see in video games. It’s that kind of stuff that I think is cancerous. And I’m a free speech absolutist, but I think that at the same time, we have to have free speech in some kind of a context. And part of that context is a discussion of the possible effects of it.
For SHAME Tom…
This is why blogs exist — to further free speech and give all people a voice that anyone is free to analyze for themselves.
And great job Matt for bringing this to the spotlight.