You can see the tide turning against the media that knowingly or unwittingly exploits the tragedy.
I’ve been following Planet Blacksburg –their blog. Today’s post sticks it up to NBC.

The writer question’s the decision to air the video mailed to the station, who wanted this kind of infamy, and got it. Of course, TV stations do it all the time, and only recently pulled back on airing the greatest hits of Bin Laden, whenever they were sent a ‘package.’

The Blacksburg student newspaper had this to say:

"When the package airs on television during the six-o’clock news it
becomes apparent that the motive for showing it is not to inform, but
to garner ratings."

"we are not going to devote any more bandwidth to the shooter. NBC did
exactly what the killer wanted by airing his message. We refuse to give
him that satisfaction."

It’s about time someone said that, that in order to cover the story, you have a responsibility not to the person who pitches the story to you, but to your audience, and the larger society that it impacts.

NBC, has had a flood of complaints, prompting Brian Williams to make a statement. His justification, is odd. He says he doesn’t know of any news organization that would have received something of this nature and not shared it with their audience. So that makes it OK?