From the NewsMax.com Staff

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NBC News Defends Broadcast of Cho Tapes

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NBC News President Steve Capus staunchly defends the network's decision to air video and pictures sent by Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, attributing criticism from other media sources to "competitive silliness."

"The news-value question is long gone," Capus maintained. Referring to the widespread use of the NBC material by other news organization, he also told the New York Times: "Every journalist is united on this. You can tell by their actions."

But the network announced early Thursday that it would limit the use of Cho's images to no more than 10 percent of its airtime.

Family members of some victims were so upset by NBC's decision to air the hate-filled video and written messages that they canceled scheduled Thursday appearances on NBC's "Today" show.

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  And Tony Burman, Editor in Chief of CBC News in Canada, said the network's airing of the images was a "mistake."

Even "Today" show anchor Matt Lauer acknowledged there were "some big differences of opinion within this news division" as to whether the network should air the material.

But Capus said the news division had given the question serious consideration, with the discussion involving company President Jeff Zucker, before the decision was made to air the material.

"It's not every day we get a story like this," Capus told the Times. "We went over it for seven and a half hours. We didn't rush it on the air. We weren't promoting it."

Despite that claim, NBC sent out the material to other media along with a list of rules for how they could use it, including: "No Internet use. No archival. Mandatory credit, NBC News." What's more, the network burned the logo "NBC News" into every image from Cho's material.

Capus dismissed accusations that NBC exploited the material for its own advantage: "I chalk that up to competitive silliness," he said.

But Paul Friedman, vice president of CBS News, criticized NBC's decision to burn its logo into the footage, telling the Times: "It may backfire for them to be so closely associated with footage that makes people's flesh crawl."

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