Families cancel NBC appearances, networks pull back
Cory Bergman April 19th, 2007
On the Today Show Thursday morning: “We had planned to speak to some family members of victims (of the Virginia Tech shooting) this morning but they canceled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images,” said Today host Meredith Vieira. We have a swirling debate over the issue here.
Update: NBC, MSNBC and other networks said they will pull back on using the video going forward, yet NBC News defended how it handled the story. “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.” Meanwhile, Fox News said it would no longer show the video at all.
4 Comments Add your own
1. Dave | April 19th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Good for them. Whether NBC is right or wrong, it’s good to see the public holding them accountable.
While Cho was definitely unstable, it would have been nice had there been more loving people, more often, in his life: family, friends, etc.
On that note, here’s the unofficial Lost Remote challenge of the day: Call up, visit, email, IM someone you haven’t talked to in a long time and tell them you’ve been thinking about them and want to know how they’re doing. My view is if everybody did this more often, I think we’d have less of these types of problems in the world.
2. invitedmedia | April 20th, 2007 at 5:37 am
“fox said it would no longer show the video”
that’s great.
the opportunity missed was for one of the majors to refuse to show it right from the get.
but, i’ll give credit where it is due… good call, fox.
3. Gerald | April 20th, 2007 at 6:10 am
The news media keep reporting that this is the worst massacre in U.S. history. Or the worst mass-murder in U.S. history. They are wrong… although the ones who say “the worst shooting rampage” are correct.
The worst mass murder in US history was in 1990, at the Happy Land Ballroom in New York City. But the victims were mostly non-white and the killer used a can of gasoline instead of a gun, so that doesn’t count — even though the body count was nearly three times that of the Va Tech massacre.
4. themassmurderchannel | April 20th, 2007 at 9:21 am
NBC News was so obsessed with getting all the credit for the footage that their brand is inextricably linked with the mass murderer’s vile, insane rantings.
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