Old Media Tries To Tarnish New Media With Virginia Tech Killer Video

Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Rosenthal makes an incoherent attempt to both defend NBC for airing the Virginia Tech killer's manifesto while also using the video as a means to cast foreboding warnings about the dangers of  "new media."

Yet the idea of a media savvy student issuing his own video, images and sound to present his own crazed version of what set those events in motion—"much of it is incoherent, laced with profanity," reported NBC's Pete Williams—leaves us dumbstruck.

This is, it would seem, the dark side of so-called citizen journalism, the news speaking for itself.

If eyewitnesses can nearly instantly transmit their experiences in the face of something horrible, then so too can those inflicting the horror.

Please.  The news speaking for itself is necessarily and always a bad thing?  I suppose what Rosenthal really intends to say is that news not filtered through the interpretive bias of the MSM is a bad thing.  Besides, a video produced by a mass murderer isn't so much news, but rather an insight into the dark psyche of a deranged individual. 

A madman campus killer making a video and shipping it to a media outlet has absolutely nothing to do with "citizen journalism" or "new media."   A sicko video made with a camcorder and sent to NBC is hardly any different than an elaborate suicide note being written and mailed to a media outlet.  Apparently sensitive to the fact that the killer chose to utilize "old media" -- which by the way acquiesced in the killer's wishes -- instead of "new media," Rosenthal couldn't help but add the following:

If Cho didn't put his message in a package for a major media outlet, then he might well have put it on a Web site, or a Facebook or MySpace page, or posted it on YouTube. A mere suicide note rambling about perceived injustices, apparently, is so 20th Century.

The only problem with Rosenthal's hypothetical is that it is exactly that, a hypothetical.  The fact is that the killer did not post his video on a blog or website.  He didn't need to.  There was no information barrier.  He sent it to NBC, which made a poor judgement call by running the video.  Rosenthal, it should be noted, defends the decision by NBC to air the video.  If Rosenthal and NBC think they performed some public service by providing "context" for the video, they are sadly mistaken.  The civilized world is already aware that the killer was a twisted, sadistic and disturbed person.  Airing the video only encourages other such people, who may in part be motivated by having their video aired on a major network as well.  Here's what Rosenthal had to say about the decision made by NBC:

Just as surely as it is sickening, however, NBC had no choice but to report what he said, how he said it, even the facts of how he crafted and prepackaged his message.

Shame on Rosenthal for trying to remove any blame from NBC for showing the video.  To argue that they had no choice in the matter is laughable -- particularly after he expressed so much concern about the ability of sick individuals to get their message out using new media.  It's simply inane to try and cast dire warnings about "new media" when the forum wasn't even used by the killer.  All in all, Rosenthal writes a very disingenuous article that does nothing more than reveal his bias against the blogosphere.

Update:  Michelle Malkin on the fallout facing NBC.  Hugh Hewitt discusses the overwhelming condemnation of the network for airing the video.