Emery P. Dalesio
Associated Press
Published: 9/1/2006
Excerpt:
A man obsessed with
the 1999 Columbine school attack made a videotape showing his father's
bloody corpse and describing plans to attack his former high school,
then mailed it to a newspaper which posted excerpts on its Web site. ...
... Don't judge me for what I did," (Alvaro) Castillo said in the homemade video
mailed to The Chapel Hill News, a twice-weekly newspaper that shares a
staff with The News & Observer of Raleigh. ...
... The News & Observer published the text of the letter and a
description of the videotape in Friday editions and posted four
excerpts from the videotape on its Web site. The newspaper released one
of those clips to The Associated Press for it to share with its members.
The paper's executive editor, Melanie Sill, said Friday that the
material was a rare opportunity to hear firsthand from an accused
killer. But Sill said the paper decided not to comply with Castillo's
request to make the entire tape public. ...
... "We started with some of the basic questions we ask when we report
any kind of material that is powerful but potentially distressing,"
Sill said. "What do readers gain from seeing it that they wouldn't gain
by reading about it? What are the reasons against publishing? We spent
quite a bit of time talking about that." ...
... Bob Steele, an ethics scholar at the Poynter Institute in St.
Petersburg, Fla., a journalism think tank, said such judgments are
becoming more common in Internet journalism, as new organizations
decide whether to make available videos from sources like al-Qaida or
hostage takers in Iraq.
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