NBC News fought back yesterday against a growing backlash over the way it handled the pictures and writings of the student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, strongly defended their decision to broadcast the material.

“The news-value question is long gone,” Capus said. “Every journalist is united on this. You can tell by their actions.” He referred to the widespread use of the material NBC released by virtually every other news organization in the country.

Still, NBC announced early in the day that it would limit its use of the images across NBC News, including MSNBC, to no more than 10 per cent of its airtime.

NBC received a package in the mail on Wednesday from the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui. The material included 23 pages of writing and photographs and videos on DVD. Cho made rambling threats and was depicted brandishing guns and other weapons.

Families of some of the victims, some law enforcement officials and executives from competing television news organisations have accused NBC of being insensitive or exploitative in the way it presented the materials on the air.

But in an interview, Capus described a daylong process of evaluation on Wednesday, involving numerous NBC executives and news staff members, some of whom, including Matt Lauer, the Today show anchor, expressed some reservations about putting the statements of Cho on TV.

Lauer said on his program yesterday, “Let’s be honest, there are some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all, whether we’re taking the right course of action.”

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