Following up Ted's heartfelt emotional reaction to events at Blacksburg this week, there is the practical matter of how the media covers such an event, made even more bizarre by the photos, video, audio clip and typed "manifesto" sent by Cho Seung-Hui to NBC.
If you're making the decisions at NBC, what do you do? Give a voice to a killer beyond the grave, twisting the figurative knife even deeper? Or do you think it a rare opportunity to look into the mind of such a monster, giving it unique news value?
They obviously decided to run with it, while simultaneously bending over backwards to make sure they told us over and over again they contacted authorities immediately and they were carefully editing the material.
(Brian Williams looked a bit green about the gills while explaining this Wednesday evening, and the senior news manager at NBC had a reticent tone during a phoner: you could tell they were torn, and perhaps had a measure of guilt.)
I don't usually watch NBC Nightly News (I typically don't watch any of the network newscasts, preferring to avoid the 15 minutes of pharmaceutical ads), but I did happen to tune in at about 5:36, and they were still showing the Cho photos. My initial, gut-level reaction (beyond "Holy $#!+", where'd they get that?") was thinking that the image of the psycho pointing a gun at the camera was exactly what the victims saw in their last moments, and this will be incredibly hard on the victim's families.
There has been reaction from families and police, and some news organizations are either now limiting the use of the Cho material or deciding to do away with it altogether, much like the video of the planes hitting the World Trade Center.
Read about it here
A Reuters story with some historic context
Have local shops made similar calls? Should they? Your feedback is always welcome.
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