(no subject)

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

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?

Comments

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

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?

Besides, if they knew the media wouldn't publish it

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't killers just post a youtube etc, then go do it, while relying on the public, who have a natural curiosity to know the details, from spreading their personal details, rants and images around?

Re: Besides, if they knew the media wouldn't publish it

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

That is what this killer did. His five videos currently range from ~200K to 2 million views. But it's impossible to separate the number of page views from attention pointing his way via media outlets.

Even though the anarchic general Internet is a big deal, media outlets (The New York Times, Fox News, CNN, Huffington Post, Drudge Report, MSNBC, NPR) still determine what most people who pay attention to news pay attention to. How major media outlets cover stories still makes a major difference in what people pay attention to.

To respond to your first point, it's not an issue as simple as publishing or not publishing names. It's the whole method of coverage. How does it come to be that so many are so familiar with characters like McVeigh and Manson? Is it simply because names got published and everyone suddenly knew what they know? Of course not. It's that media outlets extensively covered stories and showed faces over and over and over and over, over the course of days, week, months, and years, till there's no possible way that people wouldn't be just as familiar with who McVeigh or Manson is, as say, Biden, Cheney, Gore, or Quayle.