Both the killer and TV leave viewers to face the terror

After all the over-disclosing about the wrenching decision to air the “beyond the grave” video that Seung-hui Cho sent them, NBC did something late Wednesday that demonstrated where the network’s sentiments truly lie: They aired, on MSNBC, a canned true-crime docudrama called “Iron Hand, Dark Heart,” a special not about Cho but about James Oliver Huberty, whose 1984 shooting rampage at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro left 21 dead.

“Journeys With George” was what my TV said was supposed to be on.

Yes, they apparently preempted a political diary of George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign to create a “psycho-killer theme night” on the cable network. This was at 10 p.m., when MSNBC says goodnight as a live news source and after Cho’s face had been staring at us for hours. And the news networks were all framing their screenings of his rant like an episode of “CSI,” an endless array of expert psychologists and ex-FBI profilers brought onstage to speculate on what the video told us about the monster.

Still, there was a gnawing sense that the raw imagery conveyed more hard-core video gamer than monumentally damaged killer -- and with this, the feeling that our reference points for digesting Cho as a character were skewed by movies we’ve seen or TV shows we’ve watched or video games we’ve played.

“A multimedia manifesto,” NBC’s Brian Williams called it, suggesting a more contemporary and grungier version of the Unabomber’s letters crafted from a remote cabin.

Beyond this existed the affront of having to watch a heartless killer get more than 15 minutes of fame. Wasn’t Cho playing the broadcasters -- and, by extension, us -- in death, using the celebrated omniscience of the media against us? (During “Lost” on ABC Wednesday, three slick teasers slid by the bottom of the screen: one promoting an all-new “Grey’s Anatomy,” the next “October Road” and the last the Cho video on the 11 o’clock news.)

The backlash came quickly; on the “Today” show Thursday, a grim-looking Meredith Vieira noted that the network’s decision to air portions of the Cho package had led some family members of his victims to cancel appearances on “Today.”

How could you blame them? NBC too was in a bind, caught between re-traumatizing the victims and their families and informing and titillating its viewers.

Co-host Matt Lauer, echoing anchor Williams’ official line of a night earlier, said it was about showing the video to “help us understand or answer the question, ‘Why?’ ”

“With this package that he sent us, Cho Seung-hui has made us in some ways part of the story,” Lauer said.

By then, though, the story had already penetrated other bubbles, including perhaps the country’s most popular form of escapist entertainment, “American Idol.” Here is how a story like this hits home: when it forces the iconically mean “Idol” judge Simon Cowell to break character and clear the air.

Tuesday night, Cowell had appeared to scowl and roll his eyes as contestant Chris Richardson sent out condolences to victims of the shootings.

A night later, Cowell and the “Idol” producers replayed the incident with real audio to show that Cowell was pooh-poohing the singer’s nasally style to fellow judge Paula Abdul and didn’t pick up on what Richardson was saying on stage.

“I may not be the nicest person in the world,” Cowell said, “but I would never, ever, ever disrespect those families or those victims.”

The explanation got warm applause, and Cowell himself seemed truly humbled. There were, apparently, no hard feelings from “Idol” nation.

Fox, with less at stake, preempted an original episode of its procedural “Bones,” in which a college basketball player is shot on campus. Meanwhile, the Women’s Entertainment network reportedly excised firing-range scenes from its new docu-reality series “Wife, Mom, Bounty Hunter.”

Such a response is reminiscent of networks air-brushing out images of the World Trade Center in prime-time series after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It’s strange that no one has been calling Cho’s rampage a case of domestic terrorism. The killer left behind the equivalent of an extremist’s final video message to his mortal world. We’re used to those. Sometimes they feature suicide bombers talking of going to a better place, to their version of paradise.

The Cho video, by contrast, has left us all in his private hell.

paul.brownfield@latimes.com