VA Tech Families Cancel "Today" Show Appearance

C Goodman

NBC is feeling the backlash over its decision yesterday to air the disturbing video and photos of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui. On the network's "Today" show this morning, co-host Meredith Vieira acknowledged the fallout from the controversial decision."We had planned to speak to some family members of victims this morning but they canceled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images." Cho, a student from South Korea mailed photographs of himself posing with the guns he bought and video railing against rich kids and debauchery. The package to NBC News was mailed after he killed his first two victims on Monday morning but before he cut down 30 more people in classrooms.

NBC News President Steve Capus said that while the images could be hard for the victims' families to watch, the organization had a journalistic obligation to put them on. "This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer, and I thought that it needed to be released," he said on MSNBC. "Pretty much every single news organization all around the world has made the same decision, that it was appropriate to release this information."

Wow, what a week for Mr. Capus and NBC.First, they cave to pressure and fire Don Imus. Now, they're victimizing the Virginia Tech community over and over with non-stop images of this bastard. Would Tom Brokow have allowed all this nonsense to happen if he were still sitting in the anchor chair? No wonder people are switching over to Charlie Gibson at ABC. Besides being an excellent journalist, Gibson at least has a heart and some morals -- and probably most importantly, credibility. NBC is now bankrupt on all those counts.