In the aftermath of the shocking deaths of WDBJ journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward, one of the aspects of the incident that has been widely discussed is the public nature of the murder -- carried out on live TV, and filmed by the murderer himself, who later posted the videos on social media. Journalists and members of the public have been discouraging the public from watching or sharing the footage, though the videos have already been widely spread through Twitter and Facebook.
Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Council of the Southern Baptist Convention, joined them in his disagreement in the sharing and watching of the videos.
"I don't think we should watch the video. I don't think we should post it. And I don't think media outlets should run it," Moore stated in an article on his website.
He qualified that there are instances in which he actually encouraged Christians to see controversial images or videos, including images of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood representatives that have been released online recently. In certain instances such as these, seeing such footage is necessary, Moore said, "because our consciences must be made aware of this injustice toward the most vulnerable among us."
But the WDBJ video is different, Moore said, in that the "killer's video isn't exposing darkness. It is celebrating darkness."
"Our watching the video seems to feed into the wicked desires of the murderer himself," he said.
"We can justify watching this as 'being informed,' but there is a very thin line these days between news and entertainment," Moore continued. "The last thing we should ever be entertained by is the taking of human life. That's why our early Christian ancestors refused to go to the gladiatorial games."
Twitter and Facebook, the outlets on which the murderer Vester Lee Flanagan posted his videos, soon suspended his account after facing backlash from the public.
"@twitter Please take down the account showing the first-person #WDBJ shooting video RIGHT NOW," tweeted David Daniel, an entertainment journalist at CNN.
"Our #WDBJ crew was literally ambushed this morning," Brent Watts, the Chief Meteorologist at WDBJ, tweeted. "Please DO NOT share, or post the video."
"Have some respect and decency. These are our friends and family," he added in a later tweet.
