Second-Guessing On Use Of Cho Pictures

Did news judgment really compel NBC and other organizations to use the material Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui intended for his epitaph? Or was this a case where revulsion should have left them in a desk drawer?

They're tough questions for journalists, not made any easier by an apparent attempt by television news organizations to have it both ways when the heat was turned up.

"This is the classic ethical issue where there could be multiple right answers and multiple wrong answers," said Bob Steele, a senior journalism ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute in Florida.

NBC News was at the tip of all these issues when the package of photos, video files and written ramblings from Cho arrived in its mailroom Wednesday. Every other news organization faced the same questions when the material reached the public domain, and virtually all reached the same initial conclusion.

The pictures alone — 11 showed a gun pointed at a camera lens — were repulsive. Many who saw them viewed it as a second attack, an invitation to copycats and a fulfillment of Cho's demented wish for attention.

They sickened Peter Read, whose aspiring schoolteacher daughter Mary Karen was one of the 32 shot dead by Cho on Monday.

"I want to issue a direct personal plea, to all the major media," he told The Associated Press on Thursday. "For the love of God and our children, stop broadcasting those images and those words. Choose to focus on life and the love and the light that our children brought into the world and not on the darkness and the madness and the death."

"Use of the videos and pictures served no compelling purpose and only risked heightening public disgust toward journalists," said Alex Jones, director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

NBC should have released transcripts of what Cho said, and maybe one still picture, and locked away the rest, he said.

Journalists say it's not for them to decide whether or not the pictures are unpleasant to see, only to judge whether they are newsworthy.

Here were beyond-the-grave messages from a man who had just committed the worst school massacre in modern U.S. history. It was beginning to emerge he had a creepy past; here was stunning confirmation.

2NBC and others believed the information could help the public understand some of the reasons behind Cho's rampage. At the very least, it could give authorities a blueprint for behavior they should look out for in troubled young people. The material released to the public was a small portion of what Cho had sent, NBC's Brian Williams said.

"You can't say this has no news value," said David Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. "It does. It's obvious to anybody who has been in the news business for a nanosecond."

To a certain degree, NBC was faced with a no-win decision reminiscent of when The New York Times reported in 2005 on the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping policy. The Times was criticized in some circles for reporting the story at all, and in others for delaying its release several months to nail down the reporting.

If NBC did not reveal the contents of Cho's messages, its executives would have certainly been criticized for suppressing the news. What were they trying to hide?

"There was a justifiable journalistic purpose (in releasing the pictures) and I believe NBC took the ethics challenge seriously and made a reasonable decision," Steele said.

Two factors undermined the media's moral authority in this case, however.

One was NBC's decision to "brand" the Cho videos and pictures with an "NBC News" logo. Networks traditionally do this to remind people of an exclusive, even when the pictures are seen elsewhere. Some critics thought that inappropriate in a case where it was only "exclusive" because that's where Cho addressed his package. It might also not have been the wisest public relations decision, given that it constantly reminds people angry about the pictures who was responsible for releasing them.

Not even 24 hours after the images were first televised, news organizations that used them were noticeably backpedaling. Fox News Channel said it was a mistake to air them, while CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC all said they would severely restrict their use.

That can be viewed as nothing better than putting a new padlock on a stable after the horse has galloped off down the road. The pictures rapidly lose their news value after their initial release and, after one news cycle, their use can appear gratuitous.

Trying to have it both ways can, to customers, be more damaging than taking a stand one way or another.

"The organizations that appear to be backing off are doing so at their own peril," Steele said.
By David Bauder