English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

Upon receiving a cryptic txt message, I flipped on CNN, only to see live, ongoing coverage of a "Tragic Bus Accident" in Georgia. The bus was carrying the baseball team of my college alma mater, and several were dead. Helpfully, several people emailed me the story from CNN.com.
As I watched the story "unfold" I couldn't help but note the visual constructions. First, there was the map of Ohio so that non-Blufftonians could figure out where the college is (most of them got it wrong for the first hour or so). Then, they decided to show the bus route from BU to Georgia (on I-75). Next, they cut to the outside of the hospital where the survivors were taken--all of this was given a voice over narration.
Then, when the fire crews finally put the bus upright, the shot of the bus being towed away was shown for about an hour straight, in loops. Some exciting footage from the BU website ("Due to activity, servers have crashed"). Finally, three hours into the story, the CGI people got on the move and managed to create a computer generated reenactment of the accident. Complete with red splotches on the ground. A CNN narrator described the body bags. I yelled obscenities. (Pacifistically).
At 11, BU made a public statement. Somehow, all the news crews were already there, crammed in the space between two buildings. Because they weren't allowed in for the prayer vigil, the reporters stood in front of the gym and tried to talk intelligently about the Bluffton Community and Faith. Fox mistook us for evangelicals.
Finally poor president Harder gave a speech. He stood in the gym, which was disguised by the grey curtains of doom and the Giant Potted Plant of Formality. As he spoke, CNN showed scenes of crying BU students, all of them mysteriously wearing BU sweatshirts.
And the anchor giggled when he said the phrase "The Beaver Baseball team."
Sigh. It is obvious that the lack of footage of the actual crash led CNN et al to react with whatever interesting motion-based film they could get--any attempt to recreate what they cannot show. But just because we *can* recreate the scene doesn't mean we should. Ethical use of visual rhetoric has been a thread on this site, but we haven't really discussed "What then shall we do?" when presented with an opportunity.
I, for one, can't get the CGI image of the bus out of my head, and I only knew one of the players' sisters. Who was featured on the front page of the Toledo Blade, emerging from the plane to see her dead brother.