Fox News Channel said it would stop telecasting the videos altogether, as did ABC. "If we do use a clip, we'll only run a few seconds, without audio," ABC News' Jeffrey Schneider said.
Cho shot to death 32 people, and then himself, on the Virginia Tech campus Monday. On Wednesday, NBC News received a package from him containing his vitriolic video, digital images of him posing with pistols, knives and a hammer, and rambling written messages.
Newspapers and Web sites handled the images in a variety of ways. The Inquirer published a picture of Cho at the bottom of the front page, with a caption providing information for linking to the videotape and other photos.
The Philadelphia Daily News devoted its front page to a picture of Cho aiming a gun point-blank at the lens.
Philly.com, the Web site of the two papers, ran a mug shot of Cho, with a link to the video.
The New York Times published a picture at the top of its front page showing Cho holding two guns, the same image published in many other papers across the country. A few newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and USA Today, elected to go with head shots of Cho that cropped out the weapons.
Presented with a grotesque exclusive, NBC ran excerpts on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News. Its rivals immediately followed suit. On last night's broadcast, NBC anchor Brian Williams spoke of "a painful decision to air what was, by any standards, news."
The disturbing footage of the killer rationalizing his massacre set off a passionate debate about media ethics.
NBC News president Steve Capus, who was in the spotlight last week for canceling MSNBC's simulcasts of Don Imus' radio show, defended his decision on the Cho tapes in rounds of interviews Wednesday night. He referred to the choice to run the video as "an obligation."
Did NBC make the right call? Opinions differ.
