Media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting

In addition to the extensive, worldwide media coverage of the event, there was intense speculation immediately following the massacre over the state of mind of the perpetrator.

On April 16, 2007, Jamal Albarghouti (البرغوثي), a graduate student at Virginia Tech, recorded a video of the exterior of Norris Hall[1] during the classroom shootings.

He said to Larry King that he left the dangerous streets of the Middle East to come to a safe town, Blacksburg, in Virginia to study.

"[9] Wayne Chiang, a Fall 2006 graduate of Virginia Tech and an ardent supporter of the right to bear arms, was widely mistaken as the killer,[10] as his profile matched several key attributes of the suspected shooter falsely reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

[13] The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric expanded to an hour that night, and NBC replaced two planned sitcom reruns with a one-hour special at 10 p.m.

Anticipating criticisms that the airing of the tapes was irresponsible, NBC News president Steve Capus said that reporting the story and distributing the information was a journalistic necessity, to provide context and background on Cho's possible motivations.

"[18] NBC defended itself by stating its staff had intensely debated releasing the footage before deciding to broadcast it and asserted it had covered this story with extreme sensitivity.

[20] There was extensive coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting and its aftermath in countries throughout the world, with many stations and papers sending journalists to Blacksburg to cover the massacre.

[21] In the UK, an editorial in The Times asked, "Why ... do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?

The student government issued a statement on Sunday, April 22, the day before classes resumed, asking the media to leave campus.

On the whole, those close to university felt that in retrospect, that while the incident could have been handled differently, blaming Steger and Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum was unfair.