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My only source for news is the Internet. Currently, most of the media outlets (websites) I'd visit in the event of a big news story have a photograph of the Arizona shooter's face on their main pages (The New York Times, Fox News, CNN, Huffington Post, Drudge Report have it up; MSNBC and NPR don't).

This leads me to ask, Does the prospect of fame incentivize mass killing / killing of famous people?

Let's say we lack empirical evidence to answer the question. Is it not enough that making criminals famous may incentivize others to commit like crimes for media outlets to consider, you know, not making criminals famous?

How do decision makers in media justify making criminals famous? A journalist's duty is to provide the public information that the public is interested in?

What I'm saying is— cover the story, just do it in a tactful manner. This makes me consider why I'm able to see the Virgina Tech shooter's face in my mind's eye, or Tim McVeigh's, or Charles Manson's. Maybe there's a parallel dimension someplace with a society that doesn't repeatedly and consistently make insane people who do big bad things famous.

I'm sure many, maybe most, will disagree with my premise, but I'm looking at the portrait of that guy right now— at his crazy Manson eyes and his smirk, and I can't help but think that he appreciates and enjoys the attention, as McVeigh did, I'm sure, and Manson did and does. So, why as a society do we all agree to reward behavior most of us do not want?

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This leads me to ask, Does the prospect of fame incentivize mass killing / killing of famous people?

I think it definitely was a factor in Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy.

And John Wilkes Booth's.

Yeah, but I got the sense you asking about fame-seekers in recent times; and even though Kennedy's death was nearly 50 years ago (!), it was really the first instance of a national tragedy being covered by television in a really big way (i.e. lots of coverage about what Oswald did, and ironically including his own public execution).

I didn't get into Sirhan, or James Earl Ray, or Squeaky Froome, or John Hinckley, but they're cases worth analysis.

"I got the sense you asking about fame-seekers in recent times"

I was. I was deviating with John Wilkes Booth. The truth is, I don't know much about people who've killed famous people or people who've committed mass killings. If It was a category in Jeopardy, I'd lose. I'm pretty sure Sirhan is the guy who killed Robert Kennedy. The other names— I have no idea who they are.

Ray murdered Martin Luther King. He insisted there were others involved in the assassination attempt, and was requesting a new trial up to the day he died. Sirhan murdered Robert Kennedy (the recent movie about the events of that day is an absolute must see), and Squeaky Fromme was a Charles Manson groupie, and fired a hand gun at President Ford. Fromme was paroled a few years ago and lives in upstate New York now.

This one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1047517/
[RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy (2007)]

No, I mean Bobby:

I never heard of that. I wonder why they chose to put two dozen really famous people into that movie.

It's really fantastic, and beautifully shot. They used the Ambassador Hotel for outdoor shots before it was finally demolished.

James Earl Ray ... I should've known that.
Squeaky Froome ... not too embarrassed about not knowing that.
John Hinckley ... I knew about his obsession with ... man, now I can't remember her name ... Contact, was she a teenage prostitute in Chinatown, Panic Room ... Jennifer ... Joan ... no ... Jodie Foster. Man, I need to go to sleep.

It's ok man ;)

Booth didn't need the assassination, at least in his day. He was *already* famous as an actor. He was evidently a damned good one, too, until his sympathies for Southern Treason overrode his common sense.

Even though he already had fame, fame could still motivate him, i.e. I've heard many times that he expected his act to be celebrated and was surprised that there was such negative press against the assassination in the South.

That wasn't quite his motivation. Rather he expected the entire conspiracy, by virtue of murdering Lincoln, Seward, Grant, and one or two others would leave the North leaderless and enable the Confederacy to revive despite its defeat on the battlefield. As it was, Seward was wounded, Grant was all right, Lincoln was killed, and instead Reconstruction turned from "potential disaster" to "real true clusterfuck."