From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We all know what happened this week. The killing and the confession, if you can call it that, express mailed to NBC.

The decision to air some of the images he sent to us, the video clips

and the photos, and to discuss what was contained in that rambling and hate-filled manifesto was

not taken lightly. It was not made quickly. And we understand that this is going to be seen

as devastating to many people who lost loved ones in this shooting. In fact, I will tell you that

we had planned to

speak to some family members of victims this morning, but they canceled their appearances because

they were very upset with NBC for airing the images.

According to NBC's Meredith Vieira, it was a tough call, but how tough, really? NBC News was

losing to ABC in the ratings, and Cho Sung Hui's multimedia missive must

have seemed like a gift. Still, on the issue of whether to air or not to air, my reflex kicked

in against nannyism, that is, withholding news out of some ill-defined notion of what's good for the

public. The public, after all,

voted with their remotes Wednesday night. But then it played again and again, and then again,

on the morrow. And I still held that Cho's dark testimony was part of the public record.

But as Thursday wore on and TV remained fixed on show's grimace, his guns, his everlasting 15 minutes, I couldn't escape the conclusion that there probably was no right way to show this stuff, and that perhaps it shouldn't be shown at all.

That was the conclusion of the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

The CBC decided it would opt out.

It wasn't such a hard decision, says CBC editor-in-chief Tony Berman,

especially after last fall's college shooting in Montreal.

That gunman killed one student and wounded 19 others before killing himself.

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