Breaking News Bufoons

So there is a lot that is very disturbing about the recent shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. News Blues's thoughts and prayers go to the victims. However, in the rush to cover the story as it breaks, the news media has been inserting all sorts of bizzare facts. Take CNN:

Court records obtained by the AP show Cho got a speeding ticket from Virginia Tech police on April 7. He was cited for going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone, the AP reported, with a court date set for May 23.

Oh! So now we should watch out for every man with a speeding ticket?! Or maybe that was his motive? I guess I can now see that his true character was that of the criminal. CNN also inserted this tidbit:

Students in one of Cho's classes called him "the question mark kid," classmate Julie Poole told the AP, because Cho used just a question mark for his name on a class sign-in sheet.

Now that is pretty deep when you think about it. But the disturbing part come from AOL, where a former classmate who is now employed at AOL shared unpublished manuscripts that the gunman had written. I know this is hardly the main issue, but isn't there some sort of violation for reproducing that without consent?

Not to be outdone, the NYTimes finished its main article on teh tragedy with these two bizzare context paragraphs:

Until Monday, the deadliest campus shooting in United States history was in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire, killing 16 people before he was shot and killed by the police. In the Columbine High attack in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves.

The single deadliest shooting in the United States came in October 1991, when George Jo Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of a Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., then shot 22 people dead and wounded at least 20 others. He shot himself in the head.

Look. I know the news cycle can be viscious, and there is a competition between various sources to see who can break what first, but shouldn't there be some relevance? I mean, do we really need to know that this guy was (barely) speeding?