The Peacock Inside Pandora's Box: NBC News and the Virginia Tech Shootings

[babylonsister]

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/04/21/122952.php

The Peacock Inside Pandora's Box: NBC News and the Virginia Tech Shootings
Written by Cameron Archer
Published April 21, 2007


By now people have heard about NBC News and other television news organizations airing Cho Seung-Hui's video manifestos and then deciding to "dial back" coverage when people considered airing such material questionable. The media as a whole are analyzing the television medium, asking whether it was right for at least one member of the television news community to broadcast material that could be seen as promoting Seung-Hui and his rambling manifesto at the expense of the Virginia Tech students he killed. The usual suspects come up — should the media self-censor, what qualifies as newsworthy, is this a further victory for Seung-Hui, will this promote copycat crimes?

The real question is why do these questions need to be brought up in separate news pieces? Does asking such questions really solve anything, or does the newsworthiness of the Virginia Tech shootings need to be stretched as far as it will go?

I wouldn't ask questions like this except for last week's media frenzy about Don Imus and the comment about "nappy-headed hos" that made Imus potentially unsalable — or salable, it's all in the spin. Last week's hot-button issue was replaced by this week's hot-button issue. An outlet of NBC Universal was featured in both stories.

Frankly, it seems like the entire NBC News division is gaining a little too much publicity for itself, both intentionally and unintentionally. The whole question of whether NBC News was right to use the package Cho Seung-Hui sent the news division is a smokescreen. Seung-Hui sent a Pandora's Box to NBC News. The temptation for an exclusive was just too strong. Even though the local authorities were contacted and everything was okayed before the video was disseminated, NBC News should have recognized what the package was: a PR campaign for Seung-Hui. That's all his videos really amount to in the end, B-roll.

It's obvious NBC News is airing Cho Seung-Hui's videos for publicity. Does anyone really need to know what was in his mind, given the established fact that he had a history of mental illness? Cho Seung-Hui is responsible for the largest mass shooting committed by a single person in American history. That's enough. He shouldn't need to make any more of a mark.

NBC's news pieces did what they were meant to do. Ratings went up and NBC Nightly News received some publicity from competing news organizations (who at least could have not identified NBC News by name). It's hard to see how any news organization in NBC News' position would act differently. Even CBC News' decision not to air any part of Seung-Hui's ramblings can be interpreted as a business decision, moral underpinnings notwithstanding. News is a business, like anything that can potentially make money. What the brouhaha with regard to NBC News really illuminates is that the media can take the bait and then feel sorry for themselves for doing so, and that they do it often. It's a duality that should never exist in the first place.

[emanymton]

1. News Organization Must Publish News!

"Publish and be damned!" The video is news worthy.

Publish is the purpose of news organizations. For any 'news' organization to have sat on the video would have been absurd and criminal. The rest of the noise (... should the media self-censor, what qualifies as newsworthy, is this a further victory for Seung-Hui, will this promote copycat crimes ...) about the consequences is banana oil.

Sorry to rain on your rant.

[crikkett]

2. and I think I agree with what you're saying

but I simply can't handle the saturation, so I exercised my right as an American (one of the few rights we have left!) to reach out and turn off the television.

I think it is inevitable that the videos were aired - seriously, someone aired the last moments of the Crocodile Hunter's (Steve Erwin's) life. You can't get lower as far as poor taste is concerned, but people wanted to see the video.

It's a news organization's duty to show the truth, however ugly it is. The populace needed to see the result of defunding state mental hospitals in the 80s (it was letting this man and others like him stay loose on the streets, a danger to themselves and others.)

Americans need to understand that we simply cannot live safe, free, *and* in complete disregard for the welfare of others.

We won't be safe, our children won't be safe, until we learn to take care of each other.

[Berry Cool]

4. I'm sick of hearing about what terrible ratings-grabbing whores NBC was to air this video.

Unpleasant and self-serving as Cho's material was, it was news. Unlike the Imus show, which was not "news" but a show NBC had a professional contract with Imus to air on MSNBC, that they could choose to end if they wished to air it no longer.

They're supposed to self-censor any news they know about that might upset anyone? Then I guess they shouldn't show anything about the war, either. After all, it might upset people. It might even inspire some poor misguided kid to sign up for the military so he can go over there and kill and be killed. Can't have that, can we?

Truth is truth. The day we start telling news organizations what to censor is the day we permit them to tell us only what they or someone else decides we can handle. Or should be able to handle. Or what they--or someone else--wants us to know.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. But they do self censor about the war

you don't see the coffins returning on the nightly news. You don't see the carnage of Iraq like we saw the carnage in Viet Nam.

Yes, truth is truth--but you can still report on something without showing it. They could have stated that Cho's video showed him with guns and pointing guns at the screen. You could have had a newsperson read his tirade. This would have given the information without sensationalizing it.

[Berry Cool]

8. Maybe we should see more of it.

Maybe seeing more of it would provoke more outrage.

Maybe sometimes we need to see things.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. There are ways to show the truth and ways to show the truth

To my mind, airing Cho's tirade gave him the posthumous fame he was hoping for. They could have said on the news that they got the stuff, the contents of which could be viewed on their website-and then show one photo and then give a summation of what was said. TV news can be hard to avoid--I was in line at the bank putting in the business deposit, and Cho's videos were being aired. I didn't care how silly it looked, I shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears. When I got to the window, the teller said, "You didn't like it, huh? Don't blame you. We've had to sit and listen to it all day."

I don't know how old you are, but I was 12 when Kennedy was assassinated. A man made a home movie that showed the event. I can't imagine ANY of the networks playing that on TV before the funeral of JFK. I don't even recall seeing the Oswald shooting, which was caught live on camera, being played over and over and over again--and there was continuous news coverage of the assassination. And everyone was glued to the TV, I can assure you.

[Berry Cool]

9. But he HAD the posthumous fame anyway. That was already a done deal.

I do feel sorry for people at jobs where they were forced to work within earshot and eyeshot of this stuff.

I am not old enough to have a memory of the JFK assassination or the Oswald shooting. But I would like to know what makes you think standards are so different today than what they were then. To my knowledge, no networks have aired the Zapruder video in its entirety--which to me would be the only way to prove your point.

I think that if, say, there were video of all the Cho killings (including his suicide), those would NOT be aired. By any network.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. I do remember

when news broadcasters would tell parents to take the kids out of the room because what they were reporting on would be too upsetting-first in the mid 1950s, because I was one of the kids sent out of the room. I have seen the Zapruder film several times on the History Channel-in slow motion, too. And I was very much present and glued to the set during the entire time of the assassination/funeral of JFK, and remember seeing the Oswald shooting exactly once. There was a difference in how the networks did things back then. To my mind, they were more responsible journalists.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. It's all about ratings

Perhaps more things are available to be seen instantly on video than in years past, but I can't help but think that NO network in 1963 would have aired the Zagruder video of Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 23 or Nov. 24. I recall several times in my youth when announcers would either say, "please send your children out of the room, the pictures to follow are too graphic for them" or "we won't air this because it is not in good taste." Of course, this was the Midwest, which is more conservative about these things than the coasts appear to be.

But since the explosion of channels, especially news channels, it appears that anything goes in the quest for the largest audience share. Some may find it amusing that I never heard the F word until I was 18, and had to ask what it meant. Now you hear it all the time on programs on HBO and the like and very young children know what the word is and what it means. So much for sheltering children. And so much for NBC teaching us that there is a time for decency--the feelings of the loved ones of the victims is, imho, far more important than glorifying a mass murderer and gaining ratings points.

[Berry Cool]

7. Bad comparison.

On which network have you, these days, seen the full Zapruder material air?

Which programs you (or "children") hear the F word on on HBO has nothing to do with the news. If you happened to watch any of the Cho video, you'd notice that any instances of it in his material were censored both aurally and visually.

It is not the responsibility of news organizations to respect the feelings of anyone or to "shelter children." That is not what they are there for.

It is not "all about ratings," believe it or not. If it were, there would still be around-the-clock airing of this stuff on all the news channels.

You honestly think that somehow by not airing this stuff, Cho is not going to be "glorified" by someone? We kid ourselves if we believe that. That sad aspect of all this is unpreventable. The idea that somehow, by not airing this stuff, the media can totally prevent copycats is misguided at best.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. But at one time this was the network take

As I said in one of these posts, I recall when news broadcasters would tell parents to have children leave the room because what was said or shown was too graphic. I think that what happened with NBC shows that things have changed greatly since my childhood.

As for "still having around the clock airings"--interestingly enough, it was public outcry AGAINST the showing of the video that caused many stations to stop showing it-this according to Ed Schultz on his show last week. He covered the whole controversy extensively. He is of my generation--and it could be a generational thing.

The point of the foul language thing is to show that there was a shift in what was considered ok to show to the general public (or the public that would pay for cable) starting in the 1980s. And once it was ok on cable, it became ok everywhere.

[Rydz777]

12. Exactly. Well said.

The package was nothing more than Cho's PR campaign, and if NBC News is smart enough to figure out the news, they are smart enough to figure out that Cho was using them posthumously. Maybe a few clinicians can be appropriately interested in "what was in Cho's mind" but I am not.