Media dilemma deepens over gunman video
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Broadcast of a video diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman has reopened the debate over media use of vile or disturbing material that goes back decades to the likes of Son of Sam and the Zodiac killer.
Gunman Cho Seung-Hui sent the footage to NBC News in the midst of his rampage on Monday during which he killed 33 people including himself, the worst shooting attack in modern U.S. history.
NBC aired the footage on Wednesday evening and was quickly followed by rivals ABC and CBS. But those networks distanced themselves from the decision on Thursday and said they would limit future broadcasts of the video. NBC itself said it would use restraint.
Some media experts labeled the move as an effort to improve NBC ratings and questioned whether giving 23-year-old Cho an outlet for hate-filled rants served the public interest.
"It was a very bad decision," said Paul Levinson, chairman of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University. "He's not a public official, he's not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy. He's just an individual psycho."
Others said the video provided a window on Cho's motives that could help in future cases, however painful the images may be to victims and their families.
"They aired valuable new information. One of the questions was the why?" said Judy Muller, a former ABC News correspondent and journalism professor at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.
"It was not even a close call -- it was a news judgment that was right," Muller said.
U.S. media are facing a barrage of such tough choices with the ease of spreading violent or gruesome images on Internet forums like video sharing site YouTube and elsewhere.
Cameras embedded in cell phones have turned every witness to an event into a potential broadcaster. Some experts wonder whether viewers can expect to see a deadly attack broadcast live one day by its perpetrators.
"It's balancing truth and harm," said Bob Steele, who teaches journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute in Florida. "In situations like this you cannot prevent all harm."
PUBLIC BEHEADINGS, SON OF SAM
The ethical breach comes when networks replay the footage to drive ratings, experts said. By taking that step, they run the risk of alienating the same advertisers they seek to attract.
"Advertisers all have different thresholds of what's suitable or not," said Brad Adgate, research director at media buyer Horizon Media.
Some advertisers build it into their contracts not to have commercial messages appear next to news of war or disaster, but not every situation can be anticipated, he said.
Recent cases include video of Saddam Hussein's hanging in December and the beheading of Nick Berg, an American kidnapped by al Qaeda in 2004.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle stirred controversy by publishing letters from the infamous Zodiac killer.
In a 1977 case, a killer later identified as David Berkowitz, or "Son of Sam," sent a hand-written letter to columnist Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily News. The newspaper consulted with police before publishing excerpts.
"Son of Sam was a much better writer than this guy," Breslin said on Thursday. "This guy writes drivel."
But he defended the broadcasts as part of an unstoppable, modern news flow.
Levinson said there were some useful parallels to be drawn between Cho, a native of South Korea who reportedly had been deemed mentally ill by a Virginia court, and the infamous urban serial killers.
"They are close cousins," he said. "Part of their psychological make-up is to get publicity and they do want to manipulate the media."
NBC is majority-owned by General Electric Co . CBS is part of CBS Corp. and ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co .
(Additional reporting by Gina Keating in Los Angeles and Paul Thomasch in New York)
