The right to edit
Editor Melanie Sill at the N&O discusses the video the Chapel Hill News received from the teenager arrested for shooting up a school in Hillsborough.
In our discussion, we asked many of the same questions we consider in deciding whether to publish any material that is powerful but also disturbing -- particularly photographs of dead people, strong language and graphic descriptions of violence, death or sexuality:
* What's the news value of the material?
* What do people gain from seeing/reading it?
* Is there an equally effective way to convey the same information with less down side?
* What negative consequences might follow from publication?
* What's the best way to present material?
This is what happens when you give the news organization the opportunity to publish. We first decide if we see the public good in publishing. I know this leaves control in MSM hands, a point upsetting to some and a power that is slipping away, mostly for the good, I think. (I'm reminded of the discussions we had here about publishing the Mohammad cartoons.)
But every publisher, whether of a newspaper, magazine or a Web site, makes decisions about what to put out. The N&O's editors made theirs. Right call? Not having seen the full video, I can't say. But I understand why they saw the need for judgment. And knowing Melanie, my guess is that I'd agree with her.
We were selective, however. We decided not to do what Castillo had asked in his letter -- simply make the tape public and allow him, in the letter writer's mind, to join the high school violence pantheon. Instead, we chose the four brief clips that illustrated the progress of the video and complemented the rest of our reporting.
We did not excerpt the graphic sections of the video (where he shows the camera his father's body, for instance) or scenes where he clearly seeks to glamorize his actions.
And for those who wanted us to distribute copies of the report on the police department, there's this line: We will not post the entire video, nor will we give copies to other media.
Honestly, you have to wonder why the young man didn't post the video himself. (For the record, YouTube's terms of service forbid submitting material that is hateful or unlawful.)
Comments (3)
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You do have to wonder why he didn't post it himself. I could put something like this up on my blog without going through Youtube...and I'm not even incredibly tech savvy.
Posted on September 1, 2006 3:22 PM
I was thinking YouTube in case he doesn't have his own Web site.
Posted on September 1, 2006 3:27 PM
You mean there are people who don't have blogs?
See, now we're at the root of the problem...
Posted on September 1, 2006 10:23 PM