NEW YORK — NBC's decision to broadcast portions of Seung-hui Cho's angry rants triggered a storm of condemnation Thursday from viewers and victims' relatives, illuminating the treacherous middle ground between exposure and exploitation in a fast-moving news cycle.
A day after receiving a package containing the Virginia Tech gunman's profanity-laced writings and videos, mailed shortly before his second round of shootings, NBC drastically curtailed its use of the images, as did most of its television brethren.
But the rapid dissemination of the materials and subsequent backlash triggered a debate about where the line gets drawn -- what constitutes news, and what goes too far.
Though media ethicists generally approved of NBC's handling of the tapes, Tony Burman, editor in chief of Canada's CBC News, called NBC's airing of the footage a "mistake," warning it could lead to copycat massacres.
For others closer to Monday's killings, the broadcast of Cho's diatribes felt like a new wound. After initially praising NBC for cooperating with investigators when it received the package, Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said he was "disappointed" by the network's decision to use some of the material.
The parents of two slain students canceled an appearance on the "Today" show in protest, and MSNBC.com's message boards were swamped with more than 3,000 messages on the topic -- the majority criticizing the network.
"What is the standard?" asked one writer from Maryland. "Will we next be seeing beheadings and full-length terrorist propaganda films? There is a fine line between news and exploitation, between the public's need to know and tastelessness. NBC crossed it."
NBC anchor Brian Williams, who participated in the internal discussions about how to handle the material, acknowledged that initially the images inadvertently took the form of "video wallpaper," until executives set restrictions on their use. (Late Wednesday night, NBC officials limited the broadcast of the video to 10% of airtime on the network and its cable channel, MSNBC.)
But Williams defended the network's dissemination of the footage, in which Cho rages against the wealthy and says he was pushed to violence.
"I don't know of a reputable news organization in this country that, upon receipt of that package, would have ... slipped it in a drawer and not shared its contents," the anchor said on his video blog. "It is beyond disturbing. It is beyond horrifying. It is also news, and news is our role, however unpleasant the stories are at times."
