Gamertell

During a lengthy radio interview with Tom Brokaw about his newest book “Boom!: Voices of the 60s” with Hugh Hewitt,  Hewitt brought up NBC’s role in the Virginia Tech Shooting incident where Cho Seung Hui, suspected of learning how to shoot using videogames, and NBC aired his Hui’s self-made video.

Brokaw didn’t hesitate to attribute violence being encouraged by videogames and blogging not by NBC. Hewitt originally asked about the Virginia Tech shootings and was it appropriate for NBC to run the killer’s videotape during the live broadcast of the event, then challenged Brokaw as to why he felt it was okay to air a self-made video that was obviously mimicking a movie. Hewitt’s stand was that the video encouraged potential copy cat killers and promoted violence rather than show how demented the shooter was.

“Yeah, they did,” Brokaw answered. After Hewitt asked if that video wouldn’t incite anyone else to do the same Brokaw explained, “No, I don’t. I think…to get back to something we were talking about earlier in general thematic terms, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job about talking about violence in this country, either. You know, Virginia Tech went away. We didn’t have any ongoing dialogs in our communities or on the air about the corrosive effect of violence. It was not what he, what people saw of him on the air that will drive them, it’s what they read in blog sites, and what they see in video games. It’s that kind of stuff that I think is cancerous. And I’m a free speech absolutist, but I think that at the same time, we have to have free speech in some kind of a context. And part of that context is a discussion of the possible effects of it.

“I’ll leave the video game comment alone, because it’s broadly dismissive and idiomatically ignorant enough that I’ll just sound cruel going after a 67-year-old South Dakotan with an enviable public and industry awards list. And he’s not wrong in his assessment of way the country has a horrible track record when it comes to dealing with its weirdly hypocritical stance on violence (violence in games is fine, for instance, but sexual themes and even partial nudity are big no-nos),” he said.

Brokaw also bashed bloggers, calling them echo chambers for cynical albeit occasionally amusing blathering.

“But the blog comment just sounds like an angry, resentful, old-media-journalist dig. Sure, blogs are often un-sourced, are frequently little cults of personality or echo chambers for cynical albeit occasionally amusing blathering, and they can certainly sound or seem to function as “mob-like.” But they’re also tremendously effective ways of applying (increasingly) democratic pressure to a monolithic, deleteriously corporatized informational superstructure, a means of confronting a mainstream media that’s increasingly less informative, insightful, carefully sourced, and journalistically competent than its newer, somewhat hostile peers,” he said. “Journalists are under intense scrutiny from bloggers, and many companies are struggling to integrate their online operations into the newsroom without lowering standards of verifying and reporting information. Much of that pressure is healthy. Clear away the rhetoric and animus of those who yearn for the annihilation of traditional journalism (the hated “MSM,” or mainstream media) and journalism will be better for the scrutiny that the blogosphere offers.”

After Brokaw’s long winded explaination about bloggers and gamers he became upset when Hewitt tried to cut the show short because of time. Brokaw was not finished with Hewitt and continued to argue his point. The show became explosive as the two bickered over the Virginia Tech Shootings and how the media handled it.

“Wait a minute. Why would you disagree with me? You’re ... I mean, don’t you want to know, aren’t you a free speech absolutist? Don’t you want to know what’s going on?” Brokaw pleaded with Hewitt to let him explain his views and when Hewitt accused Brokaw of manipulating the Va. Tech shooting information and airing a video that spawned copy cat school shooters. Brokaw became defensive and responded, “But we did it in context. We didn’t put him up there and say this was a great heroic figure. We showed how dark he was, and what the reality is. And it put a lot of campuses in this country on alert. And it’s changed … one of the things that I agree with the NRA is that if people have mental health records that are out there, people who sell guns should have access to them.”

It was an interesting debate between the Brokaw and Hewitt, you’d have to read the transcripts for the full argument and a chuckle. Especially when Hewitt accused NBC of creating the copy cat in Finland where a teen went to his school with a gun and opened fire.

Read [PCWorld] Transcript [Hugh Hewitt Show]