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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?

Yes, although I don't think it's limited to famous people.

So, why as a society do we all agree to reward behavior most of us do not want?

A couple of thoughts on this. The first is that we do reward this behavior, with pageviews and ratings and corresponding ad dollars. Second, most of us say we don't want it, but clearly enough people do - otherwise they wouldn't watch, read, etc.

With those two established, we get come to my third thought regarding a kind of tragedy of the commons. Every news outlet could get together and decide on ground rules about how to cover this story, but every outlet has an incentive to act selfishly. Once that happens, other outlets are to some degree obligated (they are public companies beholden to shareholders' profit, after all) to cover the story similarly, with names and pictures and tweets and whatnot.

I think in previous days it might have but it is relatively easy these days to get your face plastered all over the world without restoring to mass murder.

I think we should minimize mention of the perpetrators name, though. That would be a more compelling inducement, IMO. I think people like that want their names to be known for a long time after they die.

I forget which SF writer(s) had stories where governments referred to such people as "moron #32" and such but I like that idea very much.

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I think this question is impossible to answer without quantifying the consequences of NOT publishing killers names.

I.E. Even if we assume it does cause some murderers to kill, it would seem natural to suppose that NOT publishing killers names could also have some negative effect.

Not to mention that preventing the release of such names through private channels would be nigh impossible. Preventing media publishing may slow it down, even significantly, but would it realistically be enough to prevent the killer from getting the notoriety they seek?

Sure, we'll just round everybody up and use a flashy-neuralizer thing that erases their memory and no one will remember it.

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.

The only head I can give you insight on is my own, and if I was the killing type, I would take more pride in no one ever kwowing my name -meaning I never got caught.

It's kind of hard to dress that previous statement up to sound any nicer, just know I had the best of intentions (delete it when I run for mayor).

Interesting, I had similar thoughts after the Fort Hood shooting and I argued that the media should collectively agree not to publish the names or any personal information about mass murderers like this.

http://mijopo.livejournal.com/300772.html

It's always been a factor in assassinations. Assassins, particularly if they do the murders gruesomely or target the right individual *do* end up being famous. Society rewards it because it is simultaneously repelled by it and drawn to it. It's the equivalent of a deliberately-induced trainwreck.

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