That's what happened last week when The N&O found itself in possession of an hour-plus videotape recorded by a Hillsborough teenager shortly after the killing of his father and before a shooting spree on the Orange County High School campus. The 19-year-old, Alvaro Castillo, had sent the tape to the newspaper minutes before he went to the school.

The N&O faced a number of tough questions: Should it publish text and pictures from the videotape, which contained disturbing content? And came from an apparently mentally disturbed person? Should the paper turn over the tape to police? And, a first for The N&O, should it post the videotape on its Web site? You can probably think of others.

John Drescher, managing editor, says he didn't have much trouble deciding whether to publish. "You do have reservations about giving a platform to someone who is seeking attention in the course of committing a crime .... It appears that a homicide has been committed. It appears that this guy drives onto public school property and starts shooting, injuring a few people slightly. So by any definition, this is news."

In the video, Castillo makes repeated references to the 1999 school shooting rampage in Columbine, Colo., with which he said he was obsessed. Does The N&O's front-page treatment Friday inspire copycat behavior by another disturbed youth somewhere? Drescher says that's not the kind of thing an editor can dwell on.

"I don't think you could have not covered Columbine in hopes that some kid in Orange County, North Carolina, might try to duplicate the crime. In the news business, sometimes you just have to report the news as accurately and fairly as possible. You could think endlessly about the possible consequences, and I think if you did you'd never be able to report the news."

The case presented The N&O with a journalistic first because the paper now has the technical capability to extend publication from print to online. Here was a graphic video that included the suspect's detailed and emotional confession. What do you do with that?

The N&O decided to post on its Web site (www.newsobserver.com) excerpts from the tape in which Castillo explained his motivations and thinking. The most disturbing visuals, including the father's body and the youth brandishing a gun, were not posted.

Executive Editor Melanie Sill said editors struggled over what, but not whether, to post. They ultimately chose sections of the video that went further than the print story could in giving readers a look into Castillo's mind. "The clips let viewers see and hear Castillo and provide a sense of his state of mind as well as his explanations for his actions. It's first-hand information," Sill wrote in a blog Friday.

The online version also reproduced the youth's written confession that accompanied the videotape. Which raises another question -- does publication of a confession to a crime jeopardize Castillo's right to a fair trial? My answer: It may not have thrilled Castillo's lawyer, but if anyone jeopardized the case, Castillo did by sending the material to the paper. He had already confessed to sheriff's investigators that he killed his father.

Some questions remain. As of this writing Friday, the N&O had not turned over the tape and letter to the sheriff's department, nor had investigators requested it. Some journalism purists would argue that the paper should withhold the evidence on the ground that newspapers shouldn't be an arm of police. But journalists also are citizens and, in this case, there is no good reason not to cooperate. The editors I talked to agreed with that.

My only real concern with The N&O's coverage was the splashy display -- four pictures of Castillo from the video in a photo-and-story package that took up much of the front page, plus a full page inside the paper. This on a day when the state was hit by a near-hurricane tropical storm (that story ran at the top of the page).

Yes, the teenager had menaced a school campus; yes, his father was dead. All that was reported the previous day. Ultimately this is an apparently disturbed kid in a tragic domestic dispute. He got on the front page Friday because he videotaped himself and sent it to the paper. Which is what he wanted.

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