If you agree with the premise stated, just what should news organizations do? How much should parents withhold from their kids as far is information goes?

THE MEDIA IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY SICK
Written by Jack Kelly
Friday, 20 April 2007

For the sake of a few dollars more, NBC has brought closer the day of the next public mass killing in America.

"This was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this," acknowledged NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams of his network's decision to air portions of the "multimedia manifesto" Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC in the interval between his murder sprees on the Virginia Tech campus.

It was indeed a sick business decision. Mass killings inspire copycats. "School campuses in at least 10 states were locked down or evacuated in the aftermath of a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage," the AP reported Wednesday.

NBC is not alone in its guilt. Every news organization which rebroadcast portions of the video, or newspapers (like mine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for which I write a column) which published still photographs of Mr. Cho posing with his weapons is complicit.

We say we do this to protect "the people's right to know." The real reason, of course, is we hope the titillation will increase our number of viewers or readers.

But as we fatten our bottom lines, we send a message to every sociopathic loser: Wanna be famous? Go kill a lot of people. We'll put your face and your story and your alleged grievances into every home in America.