Anti-Press Express

David Kaczynski spoke recently at Plattsburgh College. Does his last name sound familiar to you? You’re probably more familiar with his brother, Ted Kaczynski, AKA The Unabomber.

David Kaczynski is the Executive Director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty ( www.nyadp.org ). He spoke about how his life changed when he realized that his brother Ted was probably the Unabomber. David Kaczynski contacted the FBI with his suspicion, hoping to save another person from being injured or even killed. He thought he had an understanding with the feds: the government would keep his name confidential and they would also not push for the death penalty.

So much for promises by your government. David Kaczynski said that his brother had mental problems and that life imprisonment without parole was the best way to protect society. But the government wanted the ultimate punishment; they didn’t care about any insanity plea. If Ted Kaczynski didn’t have some of the best lawyers around defending him, he would have been executed.

The other promise broken was confidentiality. After the word leaked out about who turned in the Unabomber, David Kaczynski had all sorts of news people parked outside his home. Big news trucks with satellite dishes, the usual circus.

It was bad enough when his worse fears about Ted were proven true – everyone in his family, especially his mother, was having a hard time trying to deal with that revelation – but now he had to contend with the media trying to pry its way into his life, hungry for that exclusive quote or image. One time he caught a newsperson using a telephoto lens to peer into one room through a part in the curtains. David Kaczynski had to go around his house, shielding each window from the greedy snoops.

In describing this situation, he compared it to a particular movie: Night of the Living Dead. He felt like one of the normal humans in that film, trapped in an isolated house, all entrances boarded up, trying to keep the flesh-eating zombies out.

News zombies. Usually I call them news vultures or vampires, but I think the zombie term is just as accurate. What gives them the right to harass a family going through a terrible time? Especially when they’re bold enough to set up their cameras and mikes on the front lawn, scrutinizing every moment, turning someone’s home into a fishbowl. How would one of them react if the table was turned, that disaster visited his family and the media was outside, pressing in on his abode, like the ravenous undead?

But a news zombie doesn’t think. It’s a mindless creature, an unemotional monster, ready to eat up the grief, pre-digesting and regurgitating tragedy into a palatable form for its zombie audiences.