Posted on 05/26/2014 8:31:14 AM PDT by ReaganÜberAlles
Rampage shooters crave the spotlight, and we should do everything possible to deprive them of it. How might journalists and police change their practices to discourage mass shootings? First, they need to do more to deprive the killer of an audience: Never publish a shooter's propaganda. Hide their names and faces. Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. Minimize specifics and gory details. No photos or videos of the event. Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families. Decrease the saturation.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Fame is what they CRAVE!DENY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its not ignorance. It desensationalizing. Your idea is trivial.
There is actually a paradox in play, in that if an armed citizen double taps the serial killer early on, the murderer does not get the serial killer label. He is just an ordinary murderer, and a dead one.
Though I suppose that if after the fact, the murderer has left some message indicating he *wanted* to be a serial killer, he might be counted among them, but as a lesser light to those who actually were serial killers. A wannabee.
But his accolades matter far less to those who were his intended victims than does the continuation of their lives.
Its not ignorance. It desensationalizing. Your idea is trivial.
This is what I have been saying! When the papers publish the scum’s “manifesto” they encourage the next deranged POS to murder and publish his “manifesto.”
The perps of these mass murders KNOW they will gain fame & infamy. The picture how it will be. How they went out in a blaze of glory. Take away the fame and you take a way a big possible motive. IMO
All these suggestions are just too hard to attempt. Couldn’t we just ban all guns, declare the problem solved, and relax?
Yes, I do believe that if there was no, or little, coverage of the event, there would be fewer of them. There really seems to be a sick cult of one-upmanship in these tragedies, and it doesn’t help that the media start placing blame before any of the details are known. They should stay pretty much local events for several days. Not only that, but it would prevent the circus stunts of gun-control, etc. from having a heyday. No issue ever gets the light of day truth-seeking these days. It’s plain sick.
The latest homicidal maniac didn’t seem to be after the notoriety. By his own words, he was just righting a wrong and an injustice.
And become a GOD in the process. He’ll be on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
It isn't a cure, though. The UCSB guy - no, I'm not naming him - was incredibly disturbed even by the standards of conventional psychiatry. He had seen two professionals, a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and at least two counselors, and none of them picked up on just how dangerous the guy was. The police who interviewed him didn't. But you can see the spiders crawling in his brain when you read his document.
“News people can’t help themselves..........”
CNN——MH370
:-)
.
That's what makes Islamists so dangerous.
I don’t think people who are that insane have any coherent idea of what they want other than wanting to lash out and cause pain.
What mass killers want?
UNARMED VICTIMS!!!
But but but but we can't make movies or TV shows without guns! they'd wail.
We'd blandly say: Ah yes. I remember all the gun fights in The Sound of Music, and that big gun battle in The Wizard of Oz, and the shootout in It's a Wonderful Life? Classic, who could forget that!
But we don't make movies like that anymore!!!
Precisely...
Yes, exactly... a very good case in point.
A correction to my last - apparently at least one of the Docs he saw did report him to authorities. Mea culpa.
Yes, yes, yes!
However, the media will not go along. A few will, but that’s not enough. They all have to do what is suggested.
I know the media. They live and thrive on hype, blood, fear, suffering and death. There is no chance they will suddenly get responsible and do what is right for the world.
And so there will be more mass murders, more manifestos in the papers, and more mass murders, and books, and magazine cover photos, and more manifestos, and more movies.
“That makes it difficult for them to enjoy the infamy. “
They write these long manifestos, prepare the YouTube vids and facebook posts, planning that the media will obsess over them after the killer kills himself. They would not do that for a simple suicide, but the pattern is fixed- commit a horrible crime with semiautomatic weapons then kill yourself, and we’ll show your manifesto to millions and talk about you for at least a week.
They know it will be done posthumously, and plan the worst event they can to meet the criteria of the mass media.
I agree that power is part of it, but most of these killers have a deadpan look while they are working their evil, not faces of rage or even enjoyment. Any power they wield in this world is over in 20 minutes, but CNN coverage will be hundreds of hours.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.