The Virginia Tech killer’s decision to mail NBC News a rambling manifesto and self-made photos and videos of himself flashing weapons created the classic dilemma for journalists. While the material helped explain “why?” it also gave a mentally ill murderer the publicity he craved.
The decisions began with NBC. Network news chief Steve Capus told The Washington Post that editors there decided, after much discussion, that the material was newsworthy because it helped explain why Cho Seung-Hui became a mass murderer. Others disagreed with that decision, including the Canadian Broadcast Corp. (An earlier verion of this post said CBS. My mistake.)
In this 24/7 digital media world, newspaper editors no longer are effective community “gatekeepers” of national and international news. Bill Kovach, a former editor of mine, once observed: “Our old notion of journalist as gatekeeper is obsolete. The Internet has torn down all the fences.” What newspaper editors focus on now is weeding out inaccurate information and putting news in context and perspective.
Once the material was reported by NBC, other news organizations had to decide whether and how to use it. Herald-Leader editors discussed the options and decided that, disturbing though it was, the material was the biggest development in the day’s biggest story and shouldn’t be ignored or minimized. Most other newspapers reached the same conclusion.
“I know many people will say we’re doing just what the killer wanted, splashing his picture across the front page,” Herald-Leader Visuals Editor Ron Garrison said. “But if you look at the timing and significance of his actions, the videos, the self portraits, we would be doing a disservice to the public to soften the blow that these disturbing images tell us about this sick young man.”
Several readers have called or written to criticize our decison. They said that by putting the killer’s picture and words in the paper — or at least on the front page — we were “publicizing” or “glorifying” him. A couple even said it could “encourage” other sick people to follow his example. I understand their viewpoints, but I disagree.
The biggest question in readers’ minds about this tragedy is “why?” This helps answer that question. The front-page package also included a story by staff writer Mary Meehan about the difficulties schools face in dealing with mentally ill and potentially violent students.
As Herald-Leader editors, we think our job is to report the news as accurately and completely as possible and to help readers understand it. Our job is not to sanitize the news, manage it, psychoanalyze it or think of all the possible ways it might affect readers.
That said, don’t expect to see those photos in the paper much more, if at all. The news is moving on.
Tom Eblen
Managing Editor
“Network news chief Steve Capus told The Washington Post that editors there decided, after much discussion, that the material was newsworthy because it helped explain why Cho Seung-Hui became a mass murderer.”
The next time you want to decide if such material helps explain behavior or a mental disorder, and is hence newsworthy, how about you actually speak to physicians and have them review the information thereby providing you an educated decision. Your actions disseminate his delusions, self-lies and self-excuses. It is the height of naivete and self-importance for you to believe you can draw such conclusions without an appropriate background.
My concern is not so much with what the killer did or didn’t want, but rather with sensitivity to those who have been directly affected by the shootings. They have a right not to be confronted by gratuitous broadcasting of their child’s/friend’s/loved one’s killer. The victims should be the focus, not the sick person who killed them, which is what has happened simply because the story is so sensational and sparks the grotesque curiosity of the public.
The media apologists have utterly failed to explain how those clips were newsworthy in any way. I mean, come on. There was not one single bit of information a viewer could glean from that tape that would benefit them in ANY WAY other than some twisted “rubbernecking at a traffic accident” curiosity, which cannot ever validate newsworthiness.
If even ONE family member objected, then the clips should have been kept off TV. But because good ratings are more important than good principles, the clips aired, even though it rubbed salt into the wounds of the outraged families.
Sick. Sick. Sick. The media needs to get a collective soul, heart and brain.
The media apologists have utterly failed to explain how those clips were newsworthy in any way. I mean, come on. There was not one single bit of information a viewer could glean from that tape that would benefit them in ANY WAY other than some twisted “rubbernecking at a traffic accident” curiosity, which cannot ever validate newsworthiness.
If even ONE family member objected, then the clips should have been kept off TV. But because good ratings are more important than good principles, the clips aired, even though it rubbed salt into the wounds of the outraged families.
Sick. Sick. Sick. The media needs to get a collective soul, heart and brain.
NBC, Fox, CNN and many newspapers have forever forfeited their right to be legitimate news entities. You are now and forever on the level of sleazy tabloid trash.
And YOU KNOW THIS.
Newsworthy is an excuse for having nothing better to put up as news. The material in question does not explain why Cho Seung-Hui became a mass murderer. All mass murderers attempt to justify their actions, without admitting to their own failures, by blaming others. To provide a venue for their justifications of mass murder, news sources lend credence to mass murderers’ justifications as something more than ravings of a homicidal maniac. To the suffering public and private lives that were shattered, these posting are irresponsible and encourage future atrocities.
Please explain how showing this material helps explain why Cho became a mass murderer. All it did was show what a sociopath he was (which we already knew) and fulfill his last twisted wish. How many future manifesto are we going to see because of the publicity NBC and the Herald Leader gave this one? The mainstream media’s decision to show this material is far more damaging to society then Don Imus’s racist comments and he lost his job. I think anyone involved in the decision to air this material should lose theirs too. And to top it off you try to justify showing it by using some lame argument about the internet eliminating the “gatekeepers”. Do you people have any shame? Do you not get embarassed when people ask you what you do for a living and you have to tell them I am an editor for the Herald Leader. Please apologize and resign.