News

The CBC was one of the few news organizations in the world not to air the controversial footage that Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui sent to NBC, including menacing shots of himself pointing weapons at the camera and a long diatribe against rich students.

Yesterday, Tony Burman, editor-in-chief of CBC News, staunchly defended his decision not to show the Cho video, saying he believes the public broadcaster distinguished itself from its ratings-hungry private competitors.

"This kind of coverage does trigger copycat killings and it's my personal fear that there will be another event [like the Virginia Tech massacre] -- whether in two weeks, two months or two years -- that we can trace directly back to the way many networks and newspapers broadcast these images," Mr. Burman said.

"And that would be very sad, and avoidable."

Those who used the footage set off an ethical firestorm, resulting in a slew of major U.S. news outlets stopping, or severely curbing, the broadcast of the disturbing images. Reacting to the backlash yesterday, Fox News announced it would stop using the Cho images, while NBC, its MSNBC cable outlet and ABC News vowed to restrict their use.

Both CBS News and CNN also said its producers will need "explicit approval" to use the Cho material in the future.

The developments came after the 32 victims' families cancelled appearances on NBC's Today show yesterday morning in protest against use of the footage, which was picked up around the world.

CTV News and CanWest Global also said yesterday they has advised their affiliates to use the Cho material sparingly and with care.

Mr. Burman applauded the moves by the broadcasters, but added he thought "it was appalling that various networks indulged in this orgy of useless crap."

During a break in his campus rampage on Monday, Mr. Cho sent to NBC a package including 43 photos of himself, his guns and bullets, plus a video and an 1,800-word letter.

NBC received the package Wednesday, and defended its decision to air the material because it felt it provided a glimpse into the mind of a killer who later turned the gun on himself.

Robert Hurst, CTV's president of news, said his network aired segments of the Cho footage because it does not believe in "self-censure" and viewers can choose not to watch. He added that the raw material is available on a number of other sources, such as YouTube and Google. "You can either present this stuff intelligently, with context and sensitivity, or you can pretend it doesn't exist in another platform.

"From CTV's point of view, censorship is rarely the correct choice. We believe Canadians are mature enough to listen and watch this horrible material, and judge for themselves."

At Global, Troy Reeb, vice-president of news operations, said his network debated the issue but decided "it wasn't going to do anyone any good to pretend [the video] didn't exist. Yesterday, he sent a memo to all Global news staff encouraging them to "minimize the use of these materials completely" and only use them for stories that would explain "the psychology behind it or the warning signs."

According to Nielsen, the Cho video was a ratings blowout for Wednesday's NBC. It averaged 10.3 million viewers on Monday night, followed by ABC and CBS.

Both Global and CTV said public backlash has been almost non-existent. Both also expressed surprise at the CBC's decision not to use the footage, which press reports speculated may have been inspired by the violent film Oldboy, a Grand Prix award winner at the 2004 Cannes film festival. Oldboy is a revenge drama in which a Korean man is imprisoned in an apartment for 15 years for reasons he does not understand, and when he is finally released, he learns he has five days to discover his kidnapper and his motives.

On ABC News yesterday, Michael Wellner, a forensic psychiatrist and ABC consultant, decried the widespread play given to the Cho video and called it "a social catastrophe.

"If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube," Dr. Wellner said.

"These videos do not help us understand him. . . . This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character."

Mr. Burman said the public broadcaster was "overwhelmed" with e-mails and phone calls supporting the decision to ignore the footage.

"It's counter-intuitive for any journalist to hold back information," he added. "I felt uncomfortable. But in the end, we concluded it served no purpose at all. [Widespread play of the video] was exactly what this deranged killer wanted."