Should NBC have broadcast portions of Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui's "manifesto?"
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Virginia Tech/In Memoriam
"We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness ... We will prevail ..." -- Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, poet, activist
6 comments:
Not only was NBC right to show portions of Cho Seung-Hui's multi-media manifesto, I believe they were obligated to do so.
We are in a business where the governing doctrine of good reporting is showing and not telling. The power of the image and the resonance of sound define broadcast and photojournalism. Why, then, would we abandon these tenets, practices and, most importantly, assets of our profession during one of the biggest news stories of the decade?
Certainly the images are disturbing but they offer a level of insight that speculation, profiling and other methods cannot. Since when do we pick and choose what news sources communicate directly with readers and which ones we choose to speak for?
This may sound like a detached perspective, one that is less than empathetic to the people affected by the shootings in Blacksburg. While I can only empathize with their grief and frustration, I can get some actual feel from prior experience.
In 2000, I was a freshman at the University of California Santa Barbara. As news junkies may well remember, this was the scholastic year in which UCSB had a suicide, a mail bombing and, taking the gold in an Olympics of misery, a speeding Saab screeching down Sabado Tarde Road killing four students and maiming a fifth.
The driver of the vehicle was an acquaintence of mine, I am sad to say, one David Attias. Many of the witnesses were my friends and classmates, but what they saw firsthand was made available to the world.
If not for a thorough effort on the part of the media, which included showing a disturbing video in which Attias fended off bystanders and shouted proclamations that he was "the angel of death," I think the general public might have gotten a truly detached perspective of this horrific incident. The images of Attias in court, the testimony about his mental state and other things upon which his trial ultimately hinged did much less to inform the public about the actor and the incident than that brief video which showed a young man over the edge.
As in that case, I think we are seeing here what is ultimately a failure of society, community and family to avert disaster. The tapes, in both cases, show young men who have strayed so far from any herd they have ever been a part that they have become dominated by despair. These images should serve as reminders that we are all bonded by the human condition, to let one man fall may be to let all men fall.
NBC and other networks had every right to show the Cho Seung-Hui's manifesto. Although it was disturbing, the images help the viewers look into to the mind of a murder for themselves. If the media is trying to paint a picture of Cho as deranged and unstable, why not show it? After all, journalism is a disciple of verification.
I happen to think that the media are not obligated to report on something just because it happened. It is their responsibility to use discretion when it comes to tragedies like this, not their right to broadcast anything “newsworthy” under the guise of serving the public by keeping them informed. Please—we all know what this is about. This is a bottom line business, and NBC had been losing to ABC in the ratings.
There is something darker going on, though. For the better part of a week, I cringed every time I saw Cho’s picture on the front page of newspapers. I threw my hands up in disgust when I saw headlines like “the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history,” as if it was a record to be broken. We have a problem in this country. Five killed in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998. Thirteen killed in Littleton, Colorado in 1999. Five killed in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in 2006. (For a map illustrating school shootings across the country, click here.) I can’t shake the feeling the media is helping to perpetuate this violence.
On NPR’s On the Media, host Brooke Gladstone admitted that Cho’s manifesto was “part of the public record” but perhaps should not have been aired. She talked to the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Tony Burman. The CBC decided not to show the Cho footage, in part because of a college shooting in Montreal last year that left one student dead and nineteen injured.
“There was a lot of reflection in Canada about whether our coverage went on too long, whether there turned out to be too much focus on the killer, perhaps in a way unintentionally glorifying him and his act and his motives,” Burman said, adding that many specialists have acknowledged a “copycat killing kind of dimension” to these kinds of shootings.
NBC choose to fulfill the killer’s wishes by giving him his 15 minutes of fame. He does not deserve to be immortalized. If anyone deserves that, it is the 32 innocent people who died at the hands of a coward. There are no answers in Cho’s manifesto, just the desire to be heard. We shouldn’t let that wish be fulfilled.
The recent media fervor surrounding the appropriateness of the video from the Virginia Tech killer is puzzling, at best. The media’s job is to keep people informed—answer questions. And that video answered a lot of questions for a lot of people, namely, that this is just another Columbine copycat who deserved as little attention as possible, and as an eventual result his story quickly fizzled out.
But many people seem to think that the video shouldn’t have been played at all. If NBC had decided that they didn’t want to play the video, the chances are that someone would have leaked that NBC actually had the tape and then the public would accuse the station of creating a media orchestrated event by stirring the public into a froth with demands to see the tape. The station was caught in an unfortunate position.
Regardless of whether Cho Seung Hei deserved the airtime, the video ended up impacting public opinion and answering our questions about his motives, his mindset and his general mode of thought. The tape may have been too much for some the victim’s families, but a least one watched it and felt a little closer to understanding the root of this crime. And that should be all that matters.
I believe that the public deserved to know as much as possible about the situation. I don't agree with the rather editorialized way they did a lot of the coverage - calling him psychotic - but the coverage itself was utterly justified.
Journalists are supposed to utilize as many sources as legally possible. Displaying the tape was just a handy and very useful source that needed to be used, despite its sensitive nature. It allowed first-hand evidence that otherwise could have been viewed as editorializing to be introduced to the public.
It also was a way to actually make the public pay attention to what happened and not just the dramatic overtones. I don't wish to take away from the suffering of the people involved, but personally, one of the things many people are overlooking is the thing that set Cho off. He was declared mentally ill an and imminent danger in 2005 by a Virginia Court, yet nothing was done about it. If playing the video and putting this much attention on the occurance could perhaps lead to better care of the seriously mentally ill, I believe it is worth sore feelings.
I believe that NBC did have the right to show the images and video. It was sent to them, and they should show the truth of the situation. They have the videos, so why not show them. They can help people understand and gain more knowledge about the situation. They did not contain violence in themselves, so there is no reason not to show them as far as I'm concerned.
If for whatever reason they should not have been shown on television. I think it is perfectly acceptable to post them on their website.
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