The New York Daily News And New York Post Both Run Absolutely Ridiculous Front Page Covers For The WDBJ Shootings

Today the Daily News ran a cover with “EXECUTED ON LIVE TV” and screencaps of the shooting from the video the shooter filmed and posted on social media. They had the cover ready last night and proudly boasted about it. Gave a “sneak peek!” on twitter like they werent putting a goddam snuff film on their cover. I waited till this morning to blog about it because I still actually thought that after the backlash they wouldnt actually run it. It wouldnt have mattered, the damage would have already been done online, but I figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they did the right thing. Obviously they didnt. Still ran it. Still tried to cash in on the murder of 2 people. Take a look over at the New York Post and they did the same thing. “TV MURDER” with the same first person view of the gun.

I’m not one to usually run with the outrage crowd and at the end of the day the Daily News plastering a picture of 2 people’s last moments alive isnt going to really affect anything, other than their sales. But even I think this is pretty low. Even by trashy New York newspapers standards. I dont even understand the appeal of it. Does this picture actually sell more papers? I guess it does or they wouldnt do it. But like if the Post was smart, after seeing all the heat the Daily News caught, if the Post snuck in and ran a tasteful cover with a couple nice pictures of the victims and a ribbon or something tasteful like that, I bet you the Post would sell more. Maybe thats putting too much faith in people but I think even the scumbags out there are against these covers.

I’m actually not against the pictures and videos being out there. Obviously its tragic and horrendous for anyone close to those victims to have to see that, but I also think its important for people to see how easy and appalling it was to kill those two people and realize this country has a PROBLEM. Like if the Daily News ran those photos with a headline taking a stance on gun control or making a point about the issue, I dont think it would be as bad. Its the sensationalizing of it that makes it come across like exploiting those people for the sake of sales. I dont really have answers myself. I just know this happens WAY too often and it seems every time we have the wrong reaction. From politicians to newspapers to us, we are like the only fucking country that cant figure out how to handle this. Embarrassing really. I bet (hope) one day in the future people will look back on this country and be like “Wait you let everyone have guns? Like even the stupid people and the mentally ill ones? Well that was fucking stupid.”