When the Networks Do the Right Thing

Apr 19, 2007— -- "All the News That's Fit to Print" has been the New York Times masthead logo since 1896. But at the network news organizations, no such motto exists.

In light of the recent airing of the images and rantings by Seung-hui Cho, beginning with excerpts from a video inside a package received Wednesday by NBC, it appears each organization decides a little differently whether "all the news is fit to broadcast."

"Upon receiving the materials from Cho Seung-Hui, NBC News took careful consideration in determining how the information should be distributed," NBC spokesperson Allison Gollust said in a statement. But by Thursday morning, NBC had limited their usage of the video across NBC News, including MSNBC, to "no more than 10 percent of our airtime," according to the statement.

NBC's standards and policies chief was not available for further comment.

At ABC News, an abundance of caution was the word today when President David Westin told his troops, "I don't want to see the video used as wallpaper."

ABC News Publicist Jeffrey Schneider took it a step further.

"Once that first news cycle has passed, the repetition of it [the Cho video] is little more than pornography," he said.

While that may be a bit of hyperbole, there is a long history of network news organizations not always reporting everything that comes across the transom.

Richard Wald, who served nearly five years as the ABC News senior vice president of editorial quality, recalled several cases where he and various executive producers made a conscious decision to restrict what the nation would see and learn on the evening news.

"It was Charlie Glass's abduction that changed our minds about what we show on the air," said Wald.

Glass, an ABC News correspondent, made his own headlines in 1987 when he was held hostage for two months in Lebanon.

"We put a tape of him on the air and then realized what he was saying had been coerced," said Wald. "From that point on, we decided we could report what was on the tape but not let the individuals themselves say it and then in effect hang themselves."

Glass escaped after 62 days in captivity.

Wald said other cases are decided on taste.

"We made it a policy to not show dead bodies, especially when terrorism is involved," he said. "We did that because we are in your house at 6:30 p.m., we don't know who is watching, and all of a sudden we present material without any warning. We want viewers to understand the horror but not rub their noses in it."

The rules sometimes change during the broadcast day. For example, said Wald, "Nightline is more liberal with what it will air because it's on late at night when viewers are typically adults not children."

Magazine shows also have different rules but there are absolutes.

"There was a magazine story about a prison riot. We didn't show certain words that were scrawled on the wall because it would have been tasteless to do so," said Wald. "And there was a woman prisoner who had been stripped from the waist up but we didn't air that, either."

There is however, disagreement over whether to show pictures of those who claim to have been raped.

"ABC won't show her face, yet another network has decided to do so -- because they believe the accused has been shown so the accuser should be as well," said Wald.

Sometimes news executives elect to show a still picture but will not broadcast video tape of the same event.

"In Beirut during the days of kidnappings and then receiving pictures of the victims, we received video of an alleged Army colonel who was hanged," said Wald. "We did not show that video. We showed only a still picture because the video was simply too gruesome."

A similar decision taken across the networks to not broadcast the overly gruesome video showing the execution of Saddam Hussein's sons was widely reported in The New York Times and elsewhere.

There are also concerns about jeopardizing ongoing investigations.

Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who is now a consultant for ABC News remembers several cases.

"I was deeply involved in the D.C. sniper case, the 1993 shooting outside the CIA, and the July 1997 triple homicide at Starbucks in Georgetown," he said.

At the height of the Starbucks case, said Garrett, "a local Washington reporter found out that the main suspect had shot an off-duty police officer who was having an affair in a city park. But he didn't report that because it would have harmed the case."

He continues: "Reporters are investigators just like cops, and the good ones don't want to screw up an investigation."

The incident was reported after authorities sewed up their case.

Garrett added that law enforcement agents may withhold information from the media because they believe it will encourage imitators.

"We were always concerned about copycats," he said. "The more we talked about something and showed news people pictures, the more it would lead to imitators who saw the stories. It creates an excuse for someone to copy that behavior. They think, 'Well somebody committed a crime and got his name in lights, I will too.'"

Suspects can also shape their alibis if they learn what investigators know.

"You typically hold back because you don't want it in the public domain because that could compromise the investigation," said Garrett. "You don't want to tip off the bad guys who will then start making up a story or begin lawyering up."

Sometimes the media has been duped by being too cautious.

"During the Reagan presidency, we had information on American arms in Egypt," recalled Wald. "We were asked by the administration not to report it and we didn't. Later we learned that was a political decision by the White House and of course we then gave out the information."

But Wald does acknowledge that times have changed.

"We do see stuff on the air today that we would never have allowed 20 years ago," he said. "There is not a fixed set of criteria. It changes with the culture. It's something news executives, producers and correspondents have to deal with almost every day."