Show the whole Cho video

I think NBC made a mistake in the way it handled the discovery of the materials created by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui.

Suppress it? Keep it off the air? No way. NBC should have published the whole thing and let it's viewers decide.

There has been a lot of discussion over the last 24 hours about NBC's decision to air segments of the video and writings that Cho mailed them during a lull in his rampage. Most of the debate has been around the question of whether or not NBC should have aired it at all, or whether the publication of the video and his documents glorifies the killer, disrespects the victims and their families, and encourages copy-cats to follow through on their delusions.

I think the debate misses the point. Rather than question why NBC would show it at all, I'm more concerned that NBC found it newsworthy, but then decided not to show all of it. In effect, they decided what was and was not appropriate for us to see.

If NBC or any other network found it "newsworthy," they should have shown the whole thing unedited, or made it available online, and printed the entire manifesto.

I have more of a problem with them deciding that I'm too fragile or stupid to interpret that stuff for what it is. Same thing with the scenes of 9-11 or the scenes from Iraq that they all have in their archives but never used. The worlds a tough place, I think we'd be better off seeing exactly what it's like (or at least having the choice), instead of having it packaged and sanitized in the name of decency.

I am not suggesting that news organizations should publish everything they find. Clearly there are things that happen that are not newsworthy, and it's the prerogative of the news organization to determine what is and isn't news. But in this era of the Internet, cable news, and a seemingly infinite ability to present information, once an organization has decided that something has news value that organization should publish all of it--if not in their paper or on their air, at least on their Internet sites--so readers and viewers decide for themselves.

Tags: Virginia Tech Cho Seung-Hui NBC Shooting