Va Tech Shooter sends "images, letter" to NBC

He'd probably call the assassin a nappy-headed Cho.

 

I feel guilty on so many levels for laughing at that ...

 

Not the darkest humor I've heard today. That award goes to a fellow reporter who, when NBC was showing Cho's video on the news, said "Why's Tiger Woods so pissed," and continued out of the office out to his car.

 

Bernard did a hilarious blackface take on Nikki Giovanni.

 

Cho was Cablinasian?

 

I'm with those wondering why any network believes airing the content of Cho's package is necessary. It's the wrong decision. If you want to have some experts in the field of psychiatry look at it, that's fine. But it's nothing but a spewing of hate and it serves no good purpose. It doesn't help a bit to "understand" what set him off; he's a madman. Very little of what he does makes sense to rational people. I'll guarantee you there are people out there watching this and thinking how cool it is.

 

I understand why people are upset with NBC. I only watched their Nightly News report, not any of the fallout on MSNBC and other cable channels through the night, and thought they showed some restraint.

People have argued that NBC is giving Cho the last word and giving him a voice after all of this and that it's unnecessary. However, every news outlet was trying to pin this guy down. They were interviewing students who hardly knew him and called him "quiet" and "a loner." They got their hands on old plays and term papers he wrote and tried to characterize him through those. All of a sudden a package arrives from Cho that shows, if not who he was, at least his state of mind the morning of the killings. At that point you have to report it because you've spent the previous 36 hours grasping at straws.

We had an argument in our newsroom as to the right thing to do if such a package arrived. What would you do? Report it exclusively? Hand it over to the authorities after copying it? Without copying it? Without looking at it? Bringing other news outlets aboard and sharing it? It's an interesting dilemma. Some thought NBC did it right. Some said they'd want nothing to do with it. Some thought since it arrived as almost dumb luck and not through any kind of news gathering process that there was a responsibility to bring in other media. Maybe that's a question for the journalism topics board. Any thoughts?

 

The "get the look into the mind of a maniac" is such bullshit, too.

By killing 32 people, I sort of get it.

The networks don't show streakers, the reason being that they don't want to encourage the activity.

If anything, this shit should be held to a higher standard and never shown.

Lucky for Steve Irwin's wife that she destroyed that tape of his death.

These prurient fucks at NBC would have shown that on Imax-sized screens for a song.

That Capus, what a great fella.....

Remember, it was the employees (and not 10s of millions in pulled advertising) who got Imus fired.

He said that with a straight face.

You believe that, I've got some land to sell you about 5 miles east of Miami Beach.

Asshat.

 

I'll take the contrarian stance - showing it undermines him more than it empowers him.

As a psychiatrist tried to say on "Today" this morning, between Matt Lauer's "I'm-the-star-of-this-interview" interruptions, "He didn't send this because he thought people were going to psychoanalyze him. He thought we were going to all exhalt him."

This makes him less of a powerful madman to me than a troubled little boy trying to act tough. I mean, most of the time he's reading off of a script.

It reminds me of the Dylan Klebold video where he's making all of these lunatic faces at the camera about how he's going to do "freaking" this and "freaking" that, but he can't get through the rant without stepping away to start cracking up, because he knows how silly it sounds.

What I could never figure out is how it got from that point to him stalking around the school with a semi-automatic and planting bombs everywhere. But as difficult as it is to reconcile the two things, I'm glad I can ponder it. And I think it's worth showing the Cho video for the same reasons - if they held it back and said, "Oh, we have this video but we won't air it," sure it sounds like a self-righteous stance and people would congratulate them. On the other hand, it would allow people's mental image of this kid to be a lot stronger than what he really displayed - which was simply a sick individual who would have been harmless without weapons.

No way you hold this stuff back.

 

JD, sorry, you're fishing for something that isn't there.

They called the FBI upon receiving the package. They did not open it. They were alerted to the fact that it could be from the killer by a postal carrier who noticed the Blacksburg address. The FBI came in and examined the package, dusted it, etc. The FBI opened the package and went over the materials. The FBI then "allowed" (or it was agreed upon) for NBC to make copies.

I see absolutely NOTHING wrong here ethically or morally.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Reminiscent of the ticketing agents for the 9/11 hijackers.

 

that, mr. Capus, is a rationalization.