mass-communication-theory

CHAPTER 5
96
NORMATIVE THEORIES OF MASS
COMMUNICATION
At around half past nine on the morning of April 16, 2007, a deranged young man
gunned down two students in a dormitory at Virginia Tech University. He would
later that day use his automatic weapons to kill thirty more people on that idyllic
campus. Between the two attacks, however, the shooter took the time to mail a
package to NBC News. Arriving at the broadcast network’s New York headquarters
at eleven in the morning two days later, the parcel included a twentyfive-minute
self-made videotape and forty-three photographs. Accompanying these
visuals, all featuring the angry, gun- and knife-wielding murderer, was a twentythree-page
manifesto. The network debated what to do with this material. By six
o’clock that night, the regularly scheduled start of its evening national news program,
NBC’s news professionals had made their decision. That night’s coverage of
the rampage included two minutes of video, seven photographs, and thirty-seven
sentences from the written screed. “We hit the brake pedal,” said NBC News president
Steve Capus. Brian Williams, anchor of the NBC Nightly News, admitted
that his own family could not watch the repeatedly shown images. But he added,
“However uncomfortable it is, it proves this was journalism. This was news and a
material advance in the story.” Not only was it “journalism,” offered Capus, but in
showing restraint in the airing of the images, writings, and video of the murder,
NBC practiced “good journalism” (NBC President, 2007). The airing was proper,
said NBC’s Capus, “The news-value question is long gone. Every journalist is
united on this” (in Gizbert, 2007).
Not every journalist. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) did not
air any of the NBC footage. CBC news chief Tony Burman explained:
[NBC’s] handling of these tapes was a mistake. As I watched last night, sickened as
I’m sure most viewers were, I imagined what kind of impact this broadcast would
have on similarly deranged people. In horrific but real ways, this is their 15 seconds
of fame. I had this awful and sad feeling that there were parents watching these
excerpts on NBC who were unaware that they will lose their children in some future
copycat killing triggered by these broadcasts. (in Gizbert, 2007)
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