And now, after another mass shooting, we have another instant celebrity whose history and opinions will be discussed, analyzed, and in some cases actually taken seriously. At one point this afternoon, the two top stories on cnn.com were about the guy who shot up the Sikh temple and the guy who killed six people and injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson last year, complete with photos of both men’s vacantly grinning stares –one already very familiar to us, the other soon to be.
Cnn.com missed out on the trifecta, by not including a story about the guy who shot up the Colorado movie theatre last month.
If it’s absolutely vital that we learn about these men, would the Journalism World be irrevocably harmed if we did without the photos, and possibly without the names themselves? Wade P, Jared L and James H would surely suffice, wouldn’t they? The media is perfectly capable of reporting on rape cases without revealing names and photos, after all: when most of the media bought into the phony Duke University Lacrosse Team “rape” case a few years ago, they certainly had no problem reporting every detail of every false claim without ever mentioning Crystal Gail Mangum’s name.
© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
The sad truth is, if the story sells, people will sell it. That’s how capitalism works.
I agree with the principle but “Wade P, Jared L and James H” would be too friendly.
Like I’ve said elsewhere, people like this should be “identified” with an X. Second one of the year, X2. And so on.
I say no not for any of the reasons offered, but because if the press withholds information about the bad guy, there are too many people willing to provide their own details created from their own biases. Picture the kind of wild speculation we have now in the first hours after a mass killing/attempted mass killing… the shooter was a tea-party second-amendment gun nut! No, he was a radical occupier! A Muslim! A white guy, a black guy, a brown guy, a yellow guy (hardly ever a red guy, and almost never a gyno-American) He was angry about corporatization. No, about gay marriage. Anti-immigrant! … and so on, until the press has the time to actually find out what the facts are, and get them out there (or, of course, for conspiracy nuts, for them to get their cover stories straight.)
Now, imagine that lasting not for a couple of hours, but for days, weeks, months… no, thank you.
The article is not advocating withholding all information about the gunmen in the news — just their names, faces, and the pointless details about their personal lives that do nothing except elevate them to celebrity status.
But if the point is to avoid spreading the shooter’s message (assuming there IS one, of course) then leaving it a blank slate just encourages speculation, which (in my opinion) is worse, particularly in the Internet age. Ditto with personal factors which may (or may not) have affected the bad guy’s motivation to act. I’d rather have them be known, with some degree of accuracy, than have every person with an agenda projecting motivations onto the shooter(s).
Releasing more details to the public does not stifle speculation, it feeds it. Wild, baseless speculation fades away quickly, because people eventually realize there is no substance to it, but as soon as you release some tiny detail that seems to support one of those theories, no matter how tenuously, suddenly it gains traction, at least with people whose own agendas align with that theory. Never mind if it turns out that the factoid ends up being totally irrelevant to the case — some people will never let it go.
I’d go a step further. No first name either. “The mad gunman (or gunwoman, ax murderer, chainsaw massacreer, etc. if that’s the case) of ____” would be enough to identify who you’re talking about. In the case of places like Aurora, CO, you’d add the year to make it clear which nut case you’re talking about.
Having seen the pic of the 2012 mad gunman of Aurora, CO, I have to say he looks an awful lot like Zach Weiner of SMBC.
Bill, I know this is your little pet peeve, but you really don’t have to bring it up every time. I don’t understand why you get so upset about these mass murderers being identified, but not the petty criminals in your local paper’s “police blotter” column. What’s the difference?
Besides, what about people who knew these guys and might have information on their histories or backgrounds or potential additional crimes? How are they supposed to contact police with their information if they can’t make the connection?
Yes, Powers, in fact I do. As long as the media does the same thing every time. And I wish more people would.
And I don’t see any connection between police blotters and this kind of exposure: If a police blotter in Nevada identifies somebody arrested for stealing sneakers, nobody in New Jersey is going to know his name and face and what his childhood was like, and nobody in Illinois is going to inspired to go on a copycat sneaker-stealing spree.
This morning, the New York Times ran a story about what sort of music Wade P listens to. Do you doubt that some readers are going to hit iTunes?
It’s a big step from “the media delves to deeply into the lives of mass murderers” to “the media should keep the identities of mass murderers anonymous.”
Knowing the identities of these people can help us judge a lot of things. It can help us learn what kind of danger signs to look for, it can help us figure out other crimes they may have committed previously, and it can help us make rational decisions about treatment and punishment.
If it feeds a celebrity complex on the part of the criminals, I think that’s a small price to pay for the benefits.
Speaking for myself, the main reason I want to know anything about guys like this is to answer the question, did he act alone? Does he have buddies that will try to “avenge” him?
Also, James P. is right. Information voids will be filled with tactical crap. Having some facts reduces the degree to which the incident can be politicized. Not completely, though; I heard some right-wingers claiming the guy that shot Gabby Giffords was a “liberal.” I wanted to scream, NUTJOBS DON’T ALWAYS HAVE POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS!
Your two options set up a false dichotomy. Should the press be forbidden from promulgating that information? No. But should the press do it? No.
I find it interesting that I can’t remember the name of the man who shot Yitzchak Rabin — because of a deliberate idea in the Israeli press about “blotting out the name.”