Good job NBC

josevolution wrote:

i do have kids and no i would wan't the prick alive so i could kill his ass,

that's exactly what my husband would say and I understand why.

and just because it was on every news outlet doesn't make it right

my point was - why boycott NBC if they all aired it?

and did you hear that a few of the families refused to talk to NBC after this debacle ......is that enough of an answer from the families ......

avoiding the media right now is understandable and it might not have anything to do with their feelings on the video. If my kid was shot down a few days ago, the last thing I'd be doing is watching television.

just as people here have different views, I'm sure the families have different views, too. As I said earlier, time will tell. I'm sure some of them will be on 20/20 someday.

on a side note-there is already talk of making it easier to have people committed against their will. There was a woman on the local news last night...a former professor at VT and she said that when she first heard of the shooting, she knew it was one of 2 people. When she heard the guy was asian, she knew exactly who it was.

I don't know how I feel about that. About being able to lock up every 'weird' kid for evaluation.

thankyougrandma wrote:

The Virginia shooter was a pathetic and twisted loser who took out his rage on dozens of innocents and caused untold pain in hundreds of lives.

He deserves to be forgotten, not famous.

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=492331&catname=Editorial&classif=

he shouldn't be forgetten, he should be studied. Isn't it important to figure out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again?

I agree that he was pathetic and twisted but something made him that way.

ok all the points made on this subject have been fare ,so i will just change the channel when i see his face on the screen ........

soulsinging wrote:

the purpose of showing this is to give the public what they want. this is scary and horrifying and people do not understand why it happened. the public wants to know why he did it. so they released it to give them that information. it is reassuring to people to know he had mental issues, that he was not healthy. it allows them to see him as a fucked up kid who should have been in therapy, not college. it might push them to look a little closer the next time they think a kid is weird... to see if he's just weird or if he might need help. that is why they did it. because the public wanted to see it. if they didn't want to see it, they would not have wasted time showing it.

It's obvious, and that's why he sent the tapes, cause he knew the public would want to see it (now that is a generalisation, but many want to see it), and he knew the station would show it, i predict it will happen again, just like they refuse to deal with hostage takers, cause they know if you negociate and give them what they want, it will happen again.

Now that they did what he wanted and made him famous, it means that if an individual have mental problems, and have this kind of killing spree planned, he can send his tapes to a major serious medias outlets and they will show the message to the world.

Of course it might change nothing for the killing to occur, that is impossible to predict, but it glorify, or publicize the killer himself to a disgusting level, it is voyeurism, of course that's a personal opinion that won't be shared by everyone cause most peoples do want to know, life is so boring anyway... no?

hippiemom wrote:

He should be forgotten by everyone not in the fields of mental health or law enforcement. He certainly shouldn't be a household name.

Nobody should be forgotten

soulsinging wrote:

i predict it will happen again, and it doesn't matter whether or not they show this video. people will snap. it is the headlines they are after, their video is irrelevant. they want people to hear their anger. it doesn't matter if they show this video, or reveal his plays, or write an article about the contents of the video. the second one camera shows a feed from campus, they got the attention they wanted. people felt their rage and they are satisfied. the video does not add or subtract to this, it's just an element of his psychosis. most school shooters don't make videos. a few do. it's not determinative.

well, when i say i predict it will happen again, i mean that i predict criminals will send their tapes to medias outlets and the medias will show them, the crime then become publicize, and if you think it has no effect on anyone, then i disagree. I think there's a difference between reporting the event and showing the killers testament to everyone. But there's something i sure understand, "people" want to see it, and medias give them what they want.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_en_tv/virginia_tech_nbc

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
1 hour, 54 minutes ago

NEW YORK - With a backlash developing against the media for airing sickening pictures from Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, Fox News Channel said Thursday it would stop and other networks said they would severely limit their use.

NBC News was the recipient Wednesday of Cho's package of rambling, hate-filled video and written messages, with several pictures of him posing with a gun. Contents began airing on "Nightly News," and its rivals quickly used them, too.

Family members of victims canceled plans to appear on NBC's "Today" show Thursday because they "were very upset" with the network for showing the pictures, "Today" host Meredith Vieira said.

Virginia State Police Col. Steve Flaherty — who praised NBC Wednesday for coming to authorities first with the package — said Thursday he was disappointed with what the network showed.

"I just hate that a lot of people not used to seeing that type of image had to see it," he said.

NBC said the material was aired because it helped to answer the question of why Cho killed 32 people and himself on the Virginia Tech campus Monday.

"The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on Web sites and in newspapers," NBC said in a statement. "We have covered this story — and our unique role in it — with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic incident."

NBC and its MSNBC cable outlet will "severely limit" use of these pictures going forward, "Today" host Matt Lauer said, a restriction echoed by ABC News. At both CBS News and CNN, producers will need explicit approval from their bosses to use them going forward.

Fox News announced on the air late Thursday morning that it would no longer air Cho's material, saying "sometimes you change your mind."

These decisions, of course, came more than 12 hours after the pictures became available, after they already made their impact. The news cycle dictates they would be used less, anyway.

"It has value as breaking news," said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider, "but then becomes practically pornographic as it is just repeated ad nauseam."

Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S., said the decision to air it was a tough call.

"As breaking news, it's pertinent to our understanding of why this was done," he said. "Then, once the public has seen the material and digested it, then it's fair to say, `How much should we be showing it?' I think it's to the credit of news organizations that they are dialing back."

NBC News said it had no indication why Cho chose it for his message. A Postal Service time stamp shows it was mailed at 9:01 a.m. Monday, during the two hours between his first shooting at a Virginia Tech dorm and his massacre at a classroom building.