So NBC gets delivered a post-mortum ‘look at me’ package from Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho. Of course it never crossed the network’s mind they might be better off not running any of the film or reporting on Cho’s inane ramblings. There are ratings to make after all, but now NBC and other networks that ran the footage are being shelled by the consumer.

The usually rational talk radio host Michael Medved brought this topic up on today’s show. Medved argued that if there is a copycat, and we all know there will be, NBC should be held at least partially responsible for giving a platform for Cho to speak his mind. I disagree, however my disagreement is not rock solid.

Medved also said he can already envision a playhouse deciding to try out one of Cho’s two plays. I’ve read them, and even if a playhouse does indeed decide to act out Mr. Brownstone, the entire script will have to be re-written to the point that it won’t actually be Cho’s work. For a college senior who was an English major, the loser couldn’t figure out how to actually write.

What I do find troubling about this entire ordeal of whether media organizations should have run the tape is that there’s a double standard in play. There’s now a “dilema” over the footage, Rueters reports.

Broadcast of a video diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman has reopened the debate over media use of vile or disturbing material that goes back decades to the likes of Son of Sam and the Zodiac killer . . .

“It was a very bad decision,” said Paul Levinson, chairman of the communication and media studies department at Fordham University. “He’s not a public official, he’s not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy. He’s just an individual psycho.”

Did you catch that? The dilema now is over whether to air the thoughts of a mass shooter, not whether or not to air thoughts of, say, a mass bomber. Levinson concludes Cho isn’t a terrorist, but ask any Virginia Tech student if they were not scared this past Monday. Find one who says they weren’t.  Cho even said that he sought out to be like Jesus, in that he’d inspire others to either do the same or at least speak for the . . . little man?

Apparently media critics are trying to debate whether to show any future footage, a debate worth having in my opinion. Footage of the Columbine killers was aired, and Cho did refer to the two killers. Cho knew how to get his point across and knew what he sent, no matter how pathetic it made him look, would be aired and his story would get told.

This is precisely why Islamist terrorism works, and it is precisely why the 1972 Munich terrorists struck the world’s stage. They wanted to shed light on their grievance, and they did and second generation terrorists continue to through to this day, only this time they have media organizations push that same exact agenda too.

Why then is there a dilema of whether or not to publicize Cho but not, for instance, ‘martyr’ videos of the latest suicide bomber? Part of the argument against Cho falls on that it’s cruel to the families of the VT murdered. Sure it is, but cannot the same exact thing be said of the families of those killed on September 11, March 11, July 7 or any other dates that Islamists have struck?

Levinson provides an answer in the above excerpt. Because Cho was “not a terrorist we are pursuing as part of our government policy” NBC and other networks should not have run the footage, therefore I must presume terrorists that are pursued as part of a government policy should continue to reach the airwaves according to Levinson.  I find that an unbelievably weak argument.

I am not against showing Islamist footage. In fact I’ve done so myself and continue to, in a way, spread their message. However, I try to do it all in context and show the fallacies of their arguments, what they say versus what they actually want or what they have said in the past with what they have actually done. When is the last time you’ve flipped on ABC, CNN or the BBC and they’ve put any of the car bombs going off in Iraq into context? Excuse me. That is context of the group’s supposed intentions, not context into how many people have been killed as the networks relay statistics.

This is a predictable pattern that we’ve all seen before. There is a buzz around gun control. There’s wild speculation Cho was either a closet jihadi or even a fundementalist Christian (no links to either asinine diatribe either) . Rush Limbaugh suggested today Cho was pushed to kill through the Liberal agenda to harp on class distinctions. Cho watched violent movies. I do too, but I haven’t killed anyone nor have I ever thought of doing so. And then there’s the suggestion we also have heard before, that Cho was picked on in high school. Is there anyone reading this or anyone that you know that wasn’t? Judging by how much a loser this Cho was, there isn’t any real question he was ridiculed.

Everyone seems to want answers to why Cho did what he did. Some people have just ended the discussion and concluded he was mentally deranged. Well, sure, but for someone being supposedly psychotic he sure did plan things pretty well.

Just as we want to know why radical Islamists attack the rest of the world, our media organizations give those groups carte blanche to say what they want, when they want and some even push the exact same agenda or decide it’s best not to pick sides.  With Cho, media organizations have picked sides, but what is the major difference between the two?  Cho, on the other hand, should be silenced because someone else out there might want to do the same thing to make a name for himself. That’s the critic’s contention at least, but have they ever actually watched a jihadi video or read any of their communiques? It’s the exact same thing, and it’s hypocrisy of the highest order.