April 20, 2007
Channel 7 Pulls Images of Shooter
This morning our local ABC affiliate, WJLA, decided to stop showing the disturbing images sent to NBC News by Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui. The package of still photos and videos was sent by Cho in the hours between the first and second shootings and show him wielding the murder weapons and delivering obscenity-laced diatribes. Since the footage was released on Wednesday, it has flooded TV screens, prompting some viewers and victims' family members to criticize the media.
Bill Lord, News V.P. for the Albritton Communications-owned stations, explained his network's decision on wjla.com:
Effective immediately, WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 will discontinue broadcasting images and videotapes provided to the media by Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui. The images are very disturbing to many of our viewers and we see no positive value in continuing to broadcast them. We believe this decision serves the best interests of our community. We will continue to broadcast the yearbook style photos of Cho Seung-Hui that aired prior to the images he sent to the media.
Fox News decided to pull the footage on Thursday and NBC has said they will "severely limit" its use.
What do you think? Should every station stop showing the images or are they important part of understanding this tragic news story? Do journalists in D.C. have a special responsibility due to our local connection to the Virginia Tech community?
Photo of WJLA's broadcast center by Eye Captain.
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Why watch TV news anyway? Is it a revelation that news networks and their shameless tabloid sensibilities are only out to make money? Those shrill voices of protest about this come from the same people who are dumb enough to watch that dreck in the first place. Instead of talking about gun control or the social problems that led to this, we are racing to censor the media and increase security on college campuses. This is the worst type of knee-jerk, pc crap.... oh wait never mind, I think I'll go get high instead of thinking about this any longer. Ahhhh
I'd be happy if dcist would quit running that revolting squid picture in the food review section. I've got enough tentacle porn and castration videos lying around as it is, I don't need my "peanut butter in my chocolate," thank you.
Frankly, I'd be pleased if the news media would report the other news of the world, rather than dwell, re-dwell, splice, musically-enhance and otherwise overdo the coverage of the Virginia Tech disaster.
Yes, it was extremely tragic, and it was due some press coverage. But the news media just keeps dwelling on the same stories, day after day, often entering into pure speculation and conjecture. The thing is: it won't bring back the deceased, nor will it allow us to prevent what already happened.
Society needs to take its notes, prevent something similar from happening in the future, and otherwise move on. Dwelling on sadness will only bring about more sadness - and the last thing we need now is more reasons to be sad.
A lot has happened in the world since Monday - events sad and happy. And a lot will continue to happen.
But you wouldn't know about it if the news media had any influence in the matter.
Healing will only begin once folks move on.
Just my $0.02 - your mileage may vary.
I think it's the responsibility of the news to REPORT and not censor. So, I don't fault NBC for releasing the tape. If they had not, you'd have the other half of the population screaming about censorship. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
The images should never have been shown. Briefly describing what they represented would have been enough! I can't begin to imagine how the friends and families of these people feel looking at pictures of the guy and his guns every few minutes. After flipping through several channels last night and finding his face on every one of them, I just turned the TV off.
I think it's right to initially show relevant clips in order to help viewers understand the story, but repeatedly showing it in lots of different ways, beating the story to the ground, is not useful. Thoughtful and not so graphic analysis of the clips is good; explicit repetition is not.
Choosing to not show the images after a day or two isn't censoring.
Know what and who censors. A company choosing not to do something or show a picture/video is not censoring, that is called their constitutional right of choice under the 1st Amendment or, more specifically, Freedom of the Press clause. Only the government can censor or be charged with censoring something.
Also, don't be so naive to think that media doesn't make these type of choices all the time. Why do you think they rarely/never show the video OBL sent the media from 2002-05 period? Or more recently of terrorist videos showing Americans being killed? Because that would be morally improper and upset many people. Its their choice and right. If you don't like it then start your own television company.
Is it just me, or is Cho posing like Jimmy Cliff in "The Harder They Come"?
Kudos to MS for pointing out that this isn't censorship; it's just a private corporation opting to stop running the footage.
Personally, I'm ok with the ad hoc result we've gotten: the footage gets run briefly, and that's it. I'd prefer the police not be the arbitrators of what can and can't be shared about large-scale acts of violence. And, while lately the media seem to have massive delusions of expert status (tangential rant to mainstream media: stop using yourself as sources; you're worse than the blogging community in this regard), I don't actually see media outlets as being uniquely equipped to expert or good judgments about the public benefits vs harms of running such footage.
If I were dictator of the network for the day: the footage would have never run on the air, but viewers would have been told that they could view the material on the station's website. Since television pushes media (even with the most gratuitous of warnings before running a clip and the ease of the remote control), it'd be nice to make material like this something that takes a bit more effort to opt into viewing.
These kinds of decisions are always conveniently made after the initial sensationalist mileage has been gotten from the material. A real stand would have been to not broadcast them to begin with. Making this decision now is an attempt at pandering to the audience's good sensibilities and desire to move on.
If a media outlet has something that it feels will bring the ratings, they will display it. The materials that it "censors" are withdrawn under the premise of their being decent and responsible, but in reality it is because the material is so toxic that it runs the risk of alienating viewers and hurting the bottom line.
These outlets are businesses like any other, and they will always make sound business decisions for their own good, with good taste being largely irrelevant.
If my family or friends had been killed at Va Tech I'd want to see the video. I think a lot of others would feel the same way. It'd suck like hell to watch, but I'd want that option.
But we've all seen it now. Limiting gratuitous constant repeats of the images and video is probably due at this point.
I'm sure there's justification either way for airing it. Some of the victims' families didn't want it aired, I'm sure some did. But I do think the original airing was overkill. Even just checking MSNBC.com and other major news sites I got the sense of overkill. Each posted large size stills from the video with huge font headlines for most of the day, if not 24 hours or more. You'd have thought Bin Laden had just been caught or something of that magnitude.
(And if you really want to see it, it's all over YouTube. So there's one option.)
See Jon Stewart's interview on Wednesday of Ali Allawi, a former senior adviser to the Iraqi government. Great stuff. Stewart made a point of contrasting how the US deals with these events, which fortunately are rare here, and how Iraq deals with them -- and worse -- on a daily basis.
Mike Licht - It is not just you. I just read Thelwell's The Harder They Come and watched the Movie befor the shootings. When the images came out of Cho with a gun in each hand it disturbed me.
In the movie - Ivan forced a photographer to take pictures of him holding six guns then asked that the picture be put in the paper.
The difference is that in the movie Ivan wanted his wild west gun fighter image to be published in the paper - but the publisher refused. Ivan didn't get the "fame" he wanted, Cho did.