Taking A Step Back In The Cho Debate

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: 4th Estate Debate

(AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

The debate over the media's handling of the Seung-hui Cho manifesto continued over the weekend – CNN's "Reliable Sources," for example, devoted its first two segments to whether the media did the right thing in airing the materials.

There is one way of looking at this issue I have yet to see get much attention, however, and it has to do with what we allow in our culture and what we suppress. Those who object to the airing over the video, such as Hugh Hewitt, have called doing so "reprehensible" and suggested that "NBC will have blood on its hands the next time someone sends a video to their network of their mayhem."

That's certainly a valid position, but I have to wonder about its implications. The manifesto, no matter what you think of it, had news value – it was the last communication from the killer at the center of a huge story. You may feel, as Hewitt does, that the pictures and video didn't really tell us anything, but that's a subjective judgment; I do feel that my understanding of Cho's motivations was enhanced by what I saw, and so, presumably, do people like Dave Cullen, who wrote an insightful piece in Slate comparing Cho to the Columbine killers.

There is, then, something to be gained from the release of the materials, just as there is, potentially, something to be lost. It strikes me that that's more than can be said for some of our more violent cultural products – movies, video games, and television shows that glorify violence in much the same manner Cho seems to have wanted to. (It's worth noting here that Cho was apparently inspired, in part, by the movie "Oldboy.")

If, as a culture, we want to suppress the Cho manifesto, than we have to ask ourselves what else we are willing to suppress. After all, the Cho materials at least had some value beyond entertainment; it's harder to say the same for cultural products like "Grand Theft Auto" or "300." It seems to me that anyone criticizing NBC News for releasing the materials – and CBS News and its counterparts for airing them – should be thinking long and hard about how far down that path they are willing to go.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
Follow on Twitter »

18 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment

See all 18 Comments


by jburdman7 April 26, 2007 2:18 AM EDT: Some posters on this topic confuse me. What is the justification that violence, as long as it is gratuitous and for ratings is good. But violence to show what evil still surrounds us in reality is awful?

NBC did not create the violent reality. Nor Tarantino's fantasy. NBC reported a reality that happened to be violent.

If I understand some here, they want to censor reality, and protect fantasy. Their excuse is sympathy for the family of the victims. But is it not more insulting to the families of the injured and dead to make money from fantasy violence? Glorifying gore? A third rail topic for media, which feeds at the trough of said filth.

Perhaps there is something in our hearts that wants to deny that evil still lurks in mankind. Something which yearns to believe that we are all 'basically good'. We wish to deny that we are broken and need a savior.

Denial, as they say, isnt just a river in Egypt.; Reply to this comment


by davecullen2 April 25, 2007 3:12 AM EDT: (Con%u2019t)
After Columbine, it took the FBI three months to organize this caliber of talent at a summit in Leesburg, VA. They studied all the school shootings up to that point. Speed is crucial because reality is that most of us have will have tuned out by the end of this week. Many of us already have. Answers that come three months from now will never make it to most of us. The media came to erroneous conclusions on nearly every aspect of Columbine in the early days, and most of the public has no idea that we quietly retracted them months. So collectively, we did not learn a whole lot from Columbine. (We learned myths.)

This time, the discussion came much faster, with a much wider pool of talent. I could not have done my job last week without access, and neither could my sources. Their expert conclusions would not have reached the mainstream media. We are understanding what happened in Virginia much faster than Columbine, and I hope that experts can reach some tentative conclusions which will turn out to be true before the public and the media moves on.

I understand how painful it can be. But be aware of the good that also comes from this dissemination. I appreciate Brian making this unpopular point.

If we begin the debate with the understanding that dissemination is both painful but valuable, then we can talk about how to achieve the best access, with the least possible pain.; Reply to this comment


by davecullen2 April 25, 2007 2:55 AM EDT: I have spent eight years with the Columbine victims, and I definitely understand the pain these families go through. I hope that the next time media will consider other options, like primarily using the web for video footage. That allows people to access the material at will, rather than seeing it unintentionally.

But I also see the need to disseminate the information widely and rapidly, and I'll explain why--based on what I saw behind the scenes last week. I wrote the Slate piece Brian referred to and I was actually frustrated at NBC for not releasing the text of the manifesto on the web. I spent nearly all of last week discussing the case with leading experts in psychiatry and violence, and I can tell you that it was invaluable to them. They were watching and reading the material as fast as it became available, studying it intently and discussing back and forth by phone call, conference call and email all week. I have frankly never witnessed anything quite like it.

We live in an age where lots of cheap, ratings-oriented insta-analysis happens on bad TV, but at the same time, thoughtful, reflective, deeply-analytical analysis is going on behind the scenes and making its way to the mainstream media. (To be continued.); Reply to this comment


by brucesmall April 25, 2007 1:22 AM EDT: There is a big difference between suppressing information, and showing the video over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

The problem is the TV media ran amok and displayed zero common sense, or sensitivity.; Reply to this comment


by Anetsprungen April 25, 2007 12:45 AM EDT: Has anyone contemplated Cho's introverted temperament? Does anybody even think about what it means to be an Introvert? An Introvert is not a sociopath, although many Extroverts seem to think so. But then, they're Extroverts. I have searched the WWW trying to find news articles that expressly mention Introverts and they are very rare indeed. However, I believe most of the school shootings are perpetrated by misunderstood Introverts trying to live in an Extroverted world where we are bullied, harassed, intimidated, ridiculed, teased, picked on, etc., etc. who become overwhelmed and don't know how to cope. It has also been my experience that most Extroverts do not, and probably cannot, understand Introverts. Time and again people have told me to "get over it" or "lighten up". But, you see, Introverts simply cannot do either without help. Introverts lead very lonely lives because they need to. We're all in this world together people, which means we have to learn to live together. The best way to do that is to understand our differences; which does not mean being "politically correct" all the time. It simply means respecting one another and minding our manners when we disagree. A sympathetic ear from an understanding Introvert might have diffused the problem before Cho went on his rampage.; Reply to this comment


by Lennyohio April 24, 2007 4:57 PM EDT: Cho's videos. They were released for the benefit of CBS, since the released we had shottings at Houston with a murder-suicide.; Reply to this comment


by joycewest April 24, 2007 3:05 PM EDT: I don't think the debate about releasing the Cho videos has anything to do with a debate about censoring fictional violence.
It%u2019s not because people want to stifle the free flow of information that they object to this material. They seem to be motivated by a sense of common courtesy in protecting the grieving from more pain and by the natural desire to deny a murderer the notoriety he craved.
I can appreciate that NBC withheld the worst of the Cho materials. However, there were so many options: one photo instead of many, more transcript and less video, delayed release instead of immediate. The criticisms are valid.
Of course we view real-life violence differently than we do fictional violence. It's because it IS reality that news must be treated with greater discretion. A news story about a mass murderer cannot be treated like a piece of crime fiction, with words and images assembled for maximum impact. When viewers and readers start to believe that a news story is being treated that way, the news media lose respect.; Reply to this comment


by k-sozer April 24, 2007 1:30 PM EDT: I second the idea that NBC's timing was really, really terrible. Certainly they could have waited until the funerals for the victims--the news value wasn't going to go bad on the shelf.

I also agree with the poster who suggested that the NBC harm here is far, far greater than what Don Imus was fired for. But I don't blame Quentin Tarantino, I blame NBC execs. I think a public firing of Brian Williams for consenting to the airing of the video on his news show would have a salutory effect on the TV new industry.

The comparison with violence in entertainment is really weak, I'm surprised you tried it.; Reply to this comment


by peterbaldwin-2009 April 24, 2007 12:01 PM EDT: This absurd response to a massacre has reached self-parody, especially with Hewitt's ridiculous "shoot the messenger" statement that NBC will perhaps have blood on its hands. Note that the school celebrated the massacre yesterday with marching flag-carrying students accompanied by a drum and bugle corps rendition of "America the Beautiful". Does anyone really think this would happen in Great Britain, Ireland, France, Sweden or any other EU country?

I am ashamed to be an American. We have 30,000 gun deaths a year next to a relative handful through Canada and the EU. We are uncivilized savages reveling in death, torture and slaughter. Let's not pretend that, as a people we care.; Reply to this comment


by vunderlutz April 24, 2007 11:55 AM EDT: I can't even imagine how the broadcasts affected the families and students. My prayers go out to them.

But let%u2019s face these facts:

First, mental illness is around all of us 24/7. Its there affecting our families, many of those who we work with, who walk by us on the sidewalks and who shop beside us in the stores. It's everywhere all of the time. Why weren%u2019t Cho%u2019s behaviors questioned more strenuously by those closest to him?

Second, our mental health system fails the mentally ill and society every day and most of us don't care. Believe me, Cho wasn%u2019t the only mentally ill person whose treatment consisted of a few pills, a plan and an outpatient discharge.

Third, the so-called system of preventing firearms from getting into the wrong hands is another failed system. Our government's administration of the system is that which is failing.

I believe the tapes showing Cho%u2019s disease will draw more attention to the underlying factors that contributed to his horrific acts than if the tapes were never made public.

Were Cho%u2019s actions preventable? If media and government have the guts to pursue the relevant questions, the strength to broadcast the facts, and the public can generate the will to make the changes that will to prevent other horrors; then showing the tapes will have had a redeeming value.; Reply to this comment