Do we fulfill the shooter’s mission by watching his gruesome video?

Virginia television reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward were shot to death live on the air Wednesday at 6:45 a.m. The alleged shooter was Vester Flanagan, also known at Bryce Williams, a former reporter at the same TV news station where his victims worked.

Related: Reporter, cameraman killed on air; alleged shooter films, tweets gruesome scene

If the live video of the shooting wasn’t gruesome enough &#8212 the sound of gun shots as a camera falls to the ground, and a woman screaming as she is shot to death &#8212 it got worse. Flanagan allegedly tweeted his reasoning shortly after the incident. “They hired her after that?” and then “I filmed the shooting.”

Flanagan posted his own point-of-view video of the shooting on Twitter and Facebook; all while he was on the run from authorities.

“It’s the world we are entering now with everybody being able to tape everything; the horrors are unimaginable,” said Tom Tangney on KIRO Radio’s Tom and Curley Show.

And the question was raised: How does media treat the video? Does it show the murder; the final screams of a woman as she is shot to death and intentionally put on display? But beyond that, how does a society treat such content. Should we watch?

“Does it bother you playing this?” asked John Curley asked Tangney.

Tangney was ultimately torn.

“I have no problem watching this. I think that’s partly our job as journalist; to see what’s happening. I do not know what our audience wants,” Tangney responded. “I’m always torn on this kind of subject.”

But on the other hand, if people click on the video, surely going viral across social media, do we then play a role in the horror?

“They say that a lot of these mass killers want to get attention and he is now manipulating how that attention is going to be brought to us,” Tangney said. “And we are somewhat suspect in our playing this . It is the news everyone is talking about. Are we basically just fulfilling his mission by playing this and letting people know this stuff is available? I’m afraid so. But I’m torn because our job is to bring information to people.”

“It’s like he’s framing his own movie shot,” Tangney said of the video filmed by the shooter. “It’s like he’s directing his own movie. The fact that this is now seen as something for personal consumption … he clearly wants the world to see this.”

Tangney said the shooter’s live updates on Twitter and Facebook only increase the horror of the situation.

“To me, it ramps up the media-ized version of this,” he said. “The ultimate selfie.”

With that in mind, Tom and Curley did play the audio of the shooting.

“Fair warning, what you are about to hear is the live shot,” Curley said. “They are there doing this boring story about this lake celebrating its 50th anniversary, and all of a sudden you hear the gun shots, you hear the reporter scream and then it goes back to the anchor.”

That anchor had a shocked look on her face as she attempts to move the show along.

Within hours of the shooting, and with the help of Flanagan himself, information was soon spread as to the history of the man.

“He had gripes with both the cameraman and the woman,” Tangney said. “He worked with both of them.”

“Alison, who is the 24-year-old reporter, he had said she ‘made racist comments,’ ‘they hired her after that,'” Tangney said as he read the tweets from the alleged shooter. “Adam, the photographer, ‘went to HR on me after working with me just one time.’ Then, ‘I filmed the shooting, see Facebook.’ That’s got to be one of the most chilling tweets ever tweeted.”

That was all he tweeted before a video of the shooting was posted.

“You see the pistol,” Curley said. “He’s holding the pistol out in front, he’s got the [camera] behind it.”

“He decides he’s going to take somebody’s life. Really? Because you lost your job at some rinky-dink television station?” Curley said. “If we start at 36,000 feet up and come down on this guy &#8212 it’s mental illness that you are going to kill somebody because they said something about you.”