Tv Talk Machine

Welcome to one very jarring episode of the TV Talk Machine podcast. Normally, as you know, when I am team with Question Boy (the Chronicle's very own Joe Garofoli) discussing all things TV, it often descends to rambling silliness. But this time out--at least for about the first 25 minutes--we decided to get serious. It makes sense. Garofoli is The Chronicle's media writer. Prior to him taking that job, I pretty much handled the duties for years. Together, we have a lot of experience on that beat. And this week we've obviously been called to duty on the Virginia Tech shooting rampage. In fact, my column today is all about how television news still covers major events in the same flawed way as the last tragedy, never learning any lessons or adopting change. After we taped this podcast, I spent much of the day following the latest angle, where the gunman sent a "multi-media manifesto" to NBC News. I blogged about it the rest of the day. So, in a break from being inane on the podcast, the two of us discussed a va