From a recent interview between Brokaw and Hugh Hewitt:
HH: NBC ran the Virginia Tech killer tape on the day they obtained it. Steve Capus, Brian Williams made that decision. Did they make the right decision?
TB: Yeah, they did.
HH: Do you not think it’s going to incite other people to try to do the same thing?
TB: 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 dialogue 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’ve never bought into the idea that video games cause violence. Sure many video games are violent, someone has to have other problems with their life or mental health to think they can behave in real life as they do in video games. That so many people who commit violent acts are also linked to violent video games or movies doesn’t suggest to me that the movies/video games are making the person so violent but rather that violent people are probably drawn to violent video games and/or movies.
Or blogs too, I guess, according to Brokaw.
I think attitudes like Brokaw’s spring from the liberal mindset’s distrust of individuals. Liberals feel that we can’t take care of ourselves so they want to government to do it for us. They don’t think that citizens can be trusted with personal firearms so they want to take them away. From those viewpoints, it’s not far of a leap to get to feeling people can’t be trusted to say whatever they want on blogs or play the video games they want to play.