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From http://www.deusexmalcontent.blogspot.com/
"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."
-- Chuck Palahniuk
Understand, as a veteran of this business I've always been of the opinion that news must be taken at face value -- that the potential fallout, positive or negative, from running a legitimate story should rarely, if ever, be taken into account when deciding whether or not to go to air with that story. I've sat in meeting after meeting in which the news value of an item was weighed against its potential impact. I've listened to executive after executive rationalize the choice to run a questionable news item in the hope of hiding from others and possibly even themselves the tawdriness of their true motives. I've done it myself on more than one occasion.
I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that this is exactly what Capus and company did on Wednesday when presented with a story, the spectacular sensationalism of which was matched only by its complete lack of any real value to the public. NBC's news department heads received a gift from the gods, via the mail, and they'd be damned if they weren't going to run with it -- no matter what kind of moral somersaults they might have to perform to justify the decision.
So run with it they did -- splashing Cho Seung-Hui's contorted face and idiotic ramblings across the airwaves with all the subtlety of gang-bang porn.
As if on cue from the network's PR department, Steve Capus himself took to NBC's airwaves soon after to assure America that he had personally wrestled long and hard with the leviathan ethical dilemma by such a story before valiantly pinning his conscience to the mat and forcing it to tap out. The hysterical irony was that it marked Capus's second such appearance on one of his own network's news programs in two weeks: the last time was when he bombastically asserted the moral authority of himself and his network by dropping Don Imus, who had merely insulted, rather than gunned down a group of college students.
Let me repeat that in simpler terms: make a cruel comment about a bunch of kids and you're not worthy to have a forum on NBC; stalk through the halls shooting kids in cold blood and NBC will give you all the time you'd like to speak your mind.
No matter the bullshit ethical loopholes Capus continues to try and squeeze through, one need only look at the video itself for NBC's true motivation to become crystal clear. There, burned into the top left-hand corner of every frame of tape and every still image of Cho posing with his weapons of choice is the NBC News logo -- complete with peacock. It's been put there as an almost juvenile (given the subject matter) assertion of ownership -- a figurative tongue protruding in the direction of every news organization that NBC knew would fair-use the material.
"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."
-- Chuck Palahniuk
Understand, as a veteran of this business I've always been of the opinion that news must be taken at face value -- that the potential fallout, positive or negative, from running a legitimate story should rarely, if ever, be taken into account when deciding whether or not to go to air with that story. I've sat in meeting after meeting in which the news value of an item was weighed against its potential impact. I've listened to executive after executive rationalize the choice to run a questionable news item in the hope of hiding from others and possibly even themselves the tawdriness of their true motives. I've done it myself on more than one occasion.
I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that this is exactly what Capus and company did on Wednesday when presented with a story, the spectacular sensationalism of which was matched only by its complete lack of any real value to the public. NBC's news department heads received a gift from the gods, via the mail, and they'd be damned if they weren't going to run with it -- no matter what kind of moral somersaults they might have to perform to justify the decision.
So run with it they did -- splashing Cho Seung-Hui's contorted face and idiotic ramblings across the airwaves with all the subtlety of gang-bang porn.
As if on cue from the network's PR department, Steve Capus himself took to NBC's airwaves soon after to assure America that he had personally wrestled long and hard with the leviathan ethical dilemma by such a story before valiantly pinning his conscience to the mat and forcing it to tap out. The hysterical irony was that it marked Capus's second such appearance on one of his own network's news programs in two weeks: the last time was when he bombastically asserted the moral authority of himself and his network by dropping Don Imus, who had merely insulted, rather than gunned down a group of college students.
Let me repeat that in simpler terms: make a cruel comment about a bunch of kids and you're not worthy to have a forum on NBC; stalk through the halls shooting kids in cold blood and NBC will give you all the time you'd like to speak your mind.
No matter the bullshit ethical loopholes Capus continues to try and squeeze through, one need only look at the video itself for NBC's true motivation to become crystal clear. There, burned into the top left-hand corner of every frame of tape and every still image of Cho posing with his weapons of choice is the NBC News logo -- complete with peacock. It's been put there as an almost juvenile (given the subject matter) assertion of ownership -- a figurative tongue protruding in the direction of every news organization that NBC knew would fair-use the material.