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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.

A New Media Moment: In the aftermath of the tragedy, Wikipedia shined. "From the contributions of 2,074 editors, at last count, the site created a polished, detailed article on the massacre, with more than 140 separate footnotes, as well as sidebars that profiled the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, and gave a timeline of the attacks," notes the New York Times. The article was visited more than 750,000 times in the two days after the shootings. Wikipedia is not the place to go for original reporting, but it "distinguishes itself by the ability to bring all the facts, and useful background information, together in one place,” says Wikipedia administrator Michael Snow.

An Old Media Oops: The Chicago Sun Times, relying on "an utterly impeccable source," erroneously reported early on that authorities were investigating a Chinese national for the shootings. Jon Friedman talked to the editor and managing editor about the mistake, and they "vigorously defended" the newspaper's work, but Friedman still says they slipped up. "The Sun-Times should have tried a hell of a lot harder to confirm the information," he writes. "It should have had assurances from multiple and reliable sources before it made this proclamation, which had explosive repercussions… A newspaper doesn't have to publish every bit of speculative stuff it receives, even from so-called impeccable sources."

An All Media Kiss Off: Over the weekend, the Virginia Tech student government called on reporters to leave their campus by today, when classes resumed. Students need to return to normal, says spokeswoman Liz Hart, and "[t]he best way to know how to do that is get the campus back to normal." With today's resumption of classes being treated by most news outlets as a newsworthy event, however, there are still plenty of reporters working the campus.

"If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube. This is a social catastrophe. Showing the video is a social catastrophe."

--Forensic Psychologist Michael Welner, on "Good Morning America" today. Added Welner: "This is not him. These videos do not help us understand him. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character."

"Please let us exploit your grief. ASAP THANKS!"

--An anonymous commenter on the Livejournal page of Virginia Tech student Bryce, as noted by Michael Agger in Slate. The anonymous poster's comment was a sarcastic response to a comment posted to the page by a CBC Newsworld journalist. It read: "We are looking for witnesses right now for live phone interviews. Please call me 403-521-6038 ASAP THANKS!"

It has now been two days since the shootings at Virginia Tech, and the discussion is starting about how much coverage the media is devoting to the tragedy. For the last two nights, the "Evening News" has aired in an expanded hour-long version, almost all of which has been devoted to the shootings. CBS also aired an hour-long special last night, "Virginia Tech: Anatomy Of A Rampage," part 1 of which you can watch by clicking on the video box.

Other networks have aired similar specials, and the cable networks have covered the story almost exclusively since it broke. Newspapers and the Internet have also been an invaluable and easily accessible resource for those looking for more information. Yesterday, I posted a quote from a Paul Farhi story in the Washington Post complaining about the lack of coverage of the tragedy in primetime; that piece prompted this exchange in a Washington Post online chat, an exchange highlighted by Jim Romenesko:

Too much coverage or not enough?: Am I the only one who thought the coverage was excessive? From the parts I saw around 7 p.m., while not prime time, it seemed like the stations were reporting the same information over and over again to the point that it seemed a little ridiculous as there was no new information being released.

Paul Farhi: Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for repetition. I AM arguing for putting important news in front of people during the hours most them watch TV. I also found interesting the comments from Tom Kunkel at the Univ. of Md. and Tom Rosenstiel at the Project for Excellence in Journalism, who said putting the news in primetime is *symbolically* important because it says to the public "This is what we should be focused on as a nation."

There is little doubt that the coverage has, at times, seemed repetitious – though it's somewhat unfair to blame news outlets for that fact, as they have had a lot of airtime to fill, and have largely done so admirably. My only complaint is that, in the early going, there was more discussion about who we should blame than seemed appropriate so soon after the tragedy.

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Almost as soon as the first CBSNews.com story went up about the Virginia Tech massacre, the comments section was filled with people angrily debating the merits – or lack thereof – of gun control. Some presidential candidates have already made statements about the issue, including John McCain, who "said the shooting rampage does not change his view that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to carry a weapon." At the White House today, spokesperson Dana Perino declined to address reporters' questions about whether the incident would lead to a change in gun control policy, saying it was a day to "focus on the families, the school and the community."

On the "Evening News" last night, meanwhile, anchor Katie Couric raised questions about the university's handling of the incident. She was far from alone. As the AP noted, "tough questions swiftly surfaced as to how effectively Virginia Tech authorities responded to Monday's horrific massacre." The CBSNews.com story quotes a student saying "I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident."

Gun control and Virginia Tech's handling of the incident are certainly issues that need to be explored, but I have to wonder if they need to be explored so soon after the tragedy. We just learned the identity of the suspect, and investigators are still trying to piece together what happened; at this point, we do not even know the identities of all the victims. I understand reporters' desire to push forward the story, but we will have plenty of time in the future to debate gun control and assign blame. For today, at least, isn't it enough to focus on the horrible tragedy that just took place and not the recriminations and debate surrounding it?

"It does kind of make you wonder how big a blood bath there has to be warrant their attention in prime time. How bad does it have to be to supplant 'Dancing With the Stars'?"

--Tom Kunkel, the dean of the University of Maryland's journalism school, on the lack of network prime time coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. CBS expanded last night's "Evening News" to an hour, and will air an hour-long special, "Virginia Tech: Anatomy of a Rampage," from 10-11 p.m. tonight. "Obviously, it's [a] very important [story]. But at the same time, we don't want to be endlessly repeating the same information," ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told Paul Farhi.