Jon Stewart finally waded into the media morass covering the VA Tech shooting, mocking the politicizing of the tragedy and the scapegoating. He gets into video games about 4 minutes and 15 seconds in. Brian Crecente

They may night out and out call him a tool, but it's there, right between the lines.

In a surprising bit of mainstream journalism, Winda Benedetti wrote a piece for MSNBC titled "Were video games to blame for massacre?" in which she essentially chides the media for being so willing to jump to conclusions and for so willingly listening to Jack Thompson.

The shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was only hours old, police hadn't even identified the gunman, and yet already the perpetrator had been fingered and was in the midst of being skewered in the media.

Video games. They were to blame for the dozens dead and wounded. They were behind the bloodiest massacre in U.S. history.

Or so Jack Thompson told Fox News and, in the days that followed, would continue to tell anyone who'd listen.

This excellent lede was followed up with two pages that spells out a point Heather Chaplin made on our site earlier today: Video games are this generation's boogie man.

It also seems to faintly echo our own analysis of Thompson's bold-faced malarkey.

But on with the grade-A Thompson bashing.

When Jack Thompson gets worked up, he refers to gamers as "knuckleheads." He calls video games "mental masturbation."

When he's talking about himself and his crusade against violent games, he calls himself an "educator." He likes to use the word "pioneer."

Certainly Thompson has made a name for himself. After all, he knows a thing or two about publicity. He's spent no small bit of time in front of a camera.

On those rare occasions when a student opens fire on a school campus, Thompson is frequently the first and the loudest to declare games responsible. In recent years he's blamed games such as "Counter-Strike," "Doom" and "Grand Theft Auto III" for school shootings in Littleton, Colo., Red Lake, Minn. and Paducah, Ky.

He's blamed them for shootings beyond school grounds as well. In an attempt to hold game developers and publishers responsible for these spasms of violence, Thompson has launched several unsuccessful lawsuits.

The story is a must read, something you should print out and enjoy over a beer while sitting in your favorite chair as you unwind for the day.

While I appreciate MSNBC finally seeing the light, it would have been nice if they had realized their mistake prior to putting Thompson in front of a live national audience in a time of fear and sadness to regurgitate his FUD.

Lets hope they and those like them have learned their lessons. Brian Crecente

Were video games to blame for massacre? [MSNBC]

About 24 hours after Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and then himself, I received an email from an editor at a New York newspaper asking me to write a piece about violent videogames.

Was there any link between Cho Seung-Hui and videogames? I asked.

There wasn't, as we know now, and even the editor admitted the next day that it was a request that had come from his editor who'd been scrolling through TV that night.

My editor's editor must have stumbled on Fox News where Jack Thompson hypothesized confidently that authorities would soon find videogames on Cho's computer (they haven't as of this writing), or read the online Washington Post story saying that former high school mates said he was a Counter Strike player (a claim later cut from the story when it ran in print form), or Dr. Phil on Larry King Live lamenting the presence of violent videogames in young people's lives.

I've been writing about videogames for six years now and have answered countless questions about videogames and violence on radio, TV, and podcast. So maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. But there was something about the knee-jerk immediacy of the assumption that videogames must have been involved that took me aback. I wasn't being asked for my opinion, but rather to serve up one more version of an apparently accepted truth: violent videogames lead to violent behavior. Sometimes I wonder if these people don't realize that most Americans under a certain age play video games - that it's really not that extraordinary when it turns out that the sick among us do too.

The deep, deep irony in this case is, of course, that Cho's passion was not Doom - but play writing. I certainly haven't seen any op-eds about the dangers of creative writing.

(Though it may be worth mentioning that the debut of fiction as a popular form of entertainment was met with as much distaste and suspicion in its day as the videogame. Were this several hundred years ago, we may very well have been deluged by anti-creative-writing rants.)

It's natural for people to want to make sense of the disorder of the universe. When tragedy strikes at home or in one's community, one feels a keen need to understand. Why me? Why us? If only we could answer that eternal why, we could put to rest the pain of knowing the universe can deliver up something so horrific. How much easier is to say, it was the videogames! then to come to terms with the kaleidoscope of factors that leads to events such as high school shootings.

Just as I refuse to play blame-the-videogame, however, so too do I refuse to pretend that our mass entertainment isn't part of the equation. Frankly, if you're so defensive about videogames that you refuse to acknowledge that they effect us, then I'm going to have to say you're being as knee jerk as Monsieur Thompson.

I found the snap shot Cho took of himself with two guns raised in the air that he sent to NBC News the most disturbing reminder of this reality. It's an eerily generic reference to any number of pop culture images - from underground rap videos, to game stills, to action movie posters. (John Woo flashed into my mind. Who came into yours?) It was as if Cho were mimicking some vague idea of empowered cool soaked up through years of culture osmosis. His pathetic mimicry gave us a glimpse into who he felt he had become midway through his killing spree. It doesn't give us license to lay the blame for Cho's actions at the feet of pop culture, but it does remind us that yes, duh, our culture influences us.

And let's be honest. As a culture, we fetishize violence - and I don't just mean the faux-violence of games like Postal, Gears of War, or Counter strike, or of TV shows like the seemingly endless spin offs on Law & Order and CSI. The fact is, whether we want to admit it or not, we're seeped in violence both virtual and real. We don't just play violent; we are, deep down at our core, violent.

Look at our history. We've been waging war every day since manifest destiny first became popular more than a hundred years ago - some above ground like the current war in Iraq, others clandestine like our campaigns in the Philippines, Afghanistan, and Central America. You don't become the world's super power by sitting on your heels picking daisies Just a few years ago, we gave the go ahead to our government for a policy of pre-emptive strike. What is that if not an emphatic endorsement of violence as the prime solution to a given problem? Members of the Roman Empire would have been proud.

And as the Virginia Tech shootings reminds us once again, anyone who wants a gun can get one as long as they can pay for it.

Most of us learn how to abstract away the faux-violence of pop culture and to stay numb to the real violence in the world around us. But when one of us does become sick - really sick the way Cho was - perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising that the sickness manifests itself as a bloody reflection of all the culture showed him.

To blame violent videogames for this, let alone videogames as a medium, is short sighted, hypocritical, absurd, and, frankly, a little desperate. It's an argument made by people who fear a medium they don't understand and want a bogeyman more than they want real answers.

Heather Chaplin is the co-author with Aaron Ruby of
Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment & Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution. She writes regularly about games and game culture for publications like the New York Times, the L.A. Times and NPR's All Things Considered

Andrew Rosenblum, the 20-year-old creator and host of GameLife, was expected to be freed on $50,000 bail today after allegedly threatening to recreate the spree killing of Virginia Tech at his ex-girlfriend's school.

Rosenblum, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of intent to do bodily harm, must remain at home and wear a monitoring device until his trial. The judge sitting on the hearing also refused to Rosenblum attend temple saying, "I have some serious concerns about that."

Melissa, a co-host on the show, told Kotaku yesterday called the alleged threats a "cry for attention that came from a very dark and lonely place inside Andrew," adding that anyone who knows Rosenblum knows he would never do anything violent.

Police say that Rosenblum sent threatening e-mails to an ex-girlfreind says he would create the bloodshed of Virginia Tech at her school.

"(I)'m gonna (expletive) bring a gun to your school and kill you and K (another female student) and everybody you love. It's gonna be VT all over again," Rosenblum is alleged to have written in an e-mail to his ex-girlfriend.

"Seriously I'm just that demented," Rosenblum wrote in a police report obtained by the (Boston) Herald Tuesday.

Rosenblum is the founder of GameLife which was streamed on MTV's broadband video channel, Overdrive. MTV told VH1's Gamebreak yesterday that the show is no longer on their service.

Rosenblum's attorney said Rosenblum's alleged threats came after his grandmother's death and the break-up with the alleged victim.

"Sometimes kids don't know the power of words," Carney told the Herald today. ... "He used inappropriate language to show his pain," said Carney. "He's an immature young man upset over the break up and death of a grandmother."

It's obvious that Rosenblum is a confused young man, and while I understand he may have been upset when he allegedly said what he said, if it's true, the fear his alleged comments sparked should lead to some sort of punishment. Brian Crecente

'VT' Web threat suspect faces $50,000 bail [Boston Herald]

Wow, this is pretty shocking.

Andrew Rosenblum, the founder and co-host of GameLife, has been arrested for allegedly threatening to go on a Virginia Tech-like shooting spree at a Boston-area college.

Rosenblum, who was taking classes at the Boston University, instant messaged his ex-girlfriend shortly after 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech, saying he was going to kill her, according to the Boston Herald.

"(I)'m gonna (expletive) bring a gun to your school and kill you and K (another female student) and everybody you love. It's gonna be VT all over again," 20-year-old Andrew Rosenblum allegedly wrote in an e-mail to the victim just hours after 32 people were gunned at Virginia Tech. "Seriously I'm just that demented," Rosenblum wrote, according to a BPD report. He ended the message with a threat to commit homicide and suicide: "killing people can change people's lives forever. (T)he best is in the end when I pull the trigger on myself, too."

Rosenblum was picked up by police at his parents house Tuesday and taken to a local hospital for observation. Police were expecting to arrest him today for threatening to do bodily harm.

The 19-year-old girl told police she went on three dates with Rosenblum and then broke up with him. She said he then started to harass her.

Police called the instant message threats "very serious" and said the case remained under investigation.

Last year Rosenblum's GameLife show was picked up by MTV's broadband video channel Overdrive. None of the hosts for the show returned emails seeking comments Wednesday afternoon. Brian Crecente

Update: I just heard back from Melissa, one of the show's hosts:

I only recently learned of this. Anyone who knows Andrew knows he would never do anything violent. This was clearly a cry for attention that came from a very dark and lonely place inside of Andrew. It seems the media in general is already treating this as some hot topic when, in reality, it is a small story about a sad and confused guy who needs to get some help. He is now getting that help.

Cops pick up BU student over 'VT' Web threat [Boston Herald]

Well it's gone.

The reference disappeared from the online version of the story sometime between when it hit yesterday evening and when it went into print today. The online version no longer has the reference either.

When I first was tipped off that it had disappeared I thought it was likely the result of a running story getting edited. Often with a breaking online story, a reporter's notebook is sort of dumped into a story. That goes double for hot, breaking news and triple for online stories.

I suspect what happened was that as time went by the editors and reporters got more relevant details and edited the story accordingly, beefing up the bits that mattered and cutting out the stuff that was not really connected.

Among the bits on the cutting room floor? The Counterstrike reference. I suspect that's because a childhood habit of playing video games while in high school doesn't really play a part in what a person does when they are in college and his roommates never mention him gaming, so more than likely he wasn't much of a gamer anymore.

Nosing around I was able to find out that, that was indeed the case. No conspiracy here, just good editing. Too bad that didn't happen before the reference made it into the first version. Brian Crecente

Washington Post Links Shooter to Counterstrike [Washington Post]