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Virginia Tech video - NBC

This is NBC News' statement about its decision to air the video that it received from the gunman in the Virginia Tech shootings. What do you think? "The pain suffered by the Virginia Tech community and indeed the entire country is immeasurable.  "Upon receiving the materials from Cho Seung-***, NBC News took careful consideration in determining how the information should be distributed.  We did not rush the material onto air, but instead consulted with local authorities, who have since publicly acknowledged our appropriate handling of the matter.  Beginning this morning, we have limited our usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 percent of our airtime.  "Our Standards and Policies chief reviewed all material before it was released. One of our most experienced correspondents, Pete Williams handled the reporting. We believe it provides some answers to the critical question, "why did this man carry out these awful murders?" The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on websites and in newspapers. 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. We are committed to nothing less."
Published Thursday, April 19, 2007 4:17 PM by AndySchotz

Comments

# re: Virginia Tech video - NBC

Thursday, April 19, 2007 9:06 PM by MineSafety
I don't buy this argument of running the video. The teenagers in my son's school are obsessed with this video -- trying to "make sense" of it and asking questions that as parents we do not have answers for. What purpose did this serve? It would be one thing to have authorities look at the video and psychiatrists -- the FBI. But why spread the pain? NBC and AOL have made it impossible to shield our children and teens. And the families of the dead, and even Mr. Cho's family, did not need this unless they would have asked the FBI to see it for themselves.

# re: Virginia Tech video - NBC

Friday, April 20, 2007 7:49 PM by Keith Kirkland
I have never before visited SPJ's site. I was encouraged to realize that such an organization exists. Surely, there would be  some form of condemnation from an organization that "... strives to stimulate high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism" over the egregious way that NBC handled it's windfall to a breaking story. Instead, what I find is merely a statement of justification from NBC and a tepid attempt from SPJ to elicit a debate as to what readers think about NBC's actions.

NBC could have handled the situation by simply describing and quoting the contents of the package. Even displaying still photos would have been pushing the boundaries somewhat but, arguably, would have been acceptable. But to broadcast video excerpts from Cho to a national audience less than 3 days after such a tragedy occured borders on criminal action. I choose the term criminal not in the legal sense but criminal in the moral sense (although I do suspect this why such care has been taken by NBC to spell out their cooperation with authorities).

Based on the number of archives and the number of postings from readers to this site, I can now see why the discussion of ethics in modern day journalism is so short. Apparently, there isn't any.

# re: Virginia Tech video - NBC

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 3:16 AM by AndySchotz
Keith, we haven't been blogging for long, so we welcome comments and opinions such as yours to generate a discussion. It's a leap to say that the low number of comments you see so far means there's little discussion of ethics in journalism. It only means that this is a new venue for us. I've posted a few thoughts above from Jerry Dunklee, one of our Ethics Committee members, about NBC's use of the Va. Tech video. Perhaps you'd like to respond.

# re: Virginia Tech video - NBC

Friday, April 27, 2007 1:06 PM by eb
the shooter was really selfish and he should have thought about other peoples lives before he did such a horrible thing.It was not the victims cost that they were rich and it was not his place to take their lives because of that and he should have killed hisslef first before he shot evrybody else and thats all i have to say
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