Initially, I was inclined not to renew my call here for the media not to give mass killers the attention they crave. I don’t feel a need to repeat it every time a hateful person seeks attention with a gun.
But Dan Kennedy and Matt DeRienzo gave me a nudge after the racist terrorist attack in Charleston:
@dankennedy_nu I’ve only seen social media posts. But here’s a strong @stevebuttry post from last year on topic. https://t.co/ViAfyA4fTD
— Matt DeRienzo (@mattderienzo) June 21, 2015
The link Matt shared was one of three times I have posted here about my views that media should stop giving attention to mass killers. I posted also after the mass murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 and last year near the University of California at Santa Barbara.
I will just summarize here the points I’ve made in the other posts, then I’ll discuss some particular aspects of the Charleston slaughter that underscore my point, but make it tougher to follow my advice.
Who is one of the essential 5 W’s of journalism, the questions we should answer in every story. I don’t lightly suggest that we should not name the suspects in mass killings. But we decide not to use newsworthy names in many other cases:
- Most news organizations don’t name rape survivors.
- Most grant confidentiality to some sources whose names would be newsworthy.
- As I noted in last year’s post on this topic, the New York Times and other media withheld the news that Times reporter David Rohde had been abducted by the Taliban.
My point is that we do decide sometimes not to name people and that media try to avoid manipulation in many stories, sometimes downplaying stories about protests or press conferences. And mass killings are the ultimate manipulation of media: Pathetic, evil people kill lots of other people, knowing the news media will give them instant infamy.
The pathetic, evil killer in Charleston is a prime example. He refrained from killing one of the worshipers in the church he attacked, telling her he wanted her to tell what he had said and done. He apparently posted a hateful document online, boasting of his racist view of our country and our world, accompanied by photos of him posing with the Confederate flag and other symbols of racial hatred.
A suspect is innocent until proven guilty, but he has reportedly confessed to the killings, and his motivation couldn’t be more clear: He wanted to express his hatred for African Americans and he wanted notoriety. It’s too late do anything about his first motivation, but we can deny him some satisfaction (and deny future mass killers a sliver of motivation) on his desire for notoriety.
I am pleased that Mitch Pugh, editor of the Charleston Post and Courier (which is providing excellent coverage of the terrorist attack), is consciously downplaying the suspect:
I might go one step further than Mitch and not use the killer’s name at all, but I praise his decision to give attention to the victims over the killer. He’s in a tough situation making tough decisions I have not had to make, and I applaud the coverage he and his staff are providing. Today’s front page was especially powerful:
The Charleston case illustrates that journalists should exercise news judgment, rather than following one-size-fits-all rules.
I generally favor not running photographs of mass killers, as well as not publishing their names or the diatribes they sometimes leave, expressing their hate and amplifying their plea for attention.
The Santa Barbara killer left a misogynistic diatribe that I wouldn’t have published or linked to, because it was a clear cry for attention. And it’s not uncommon for killers to show off their guns or their twisted ideology in photographs that I would usually advocate that media ignore.
But too many Republican politicians, who have been too cowardly about calling out racism in their own party, have been reluctant even to recognize the obvious racism in this crime. South Carolina still flies a Confederate flag the Stars and Bars on its state capitol grounds. That flag, by the way, wasn’t even a flag of the Confederacy or South Carolina; it was one of many battle flags, given prominence in the 20th Century by the Ku Klux Klan. Liars and Southerners in denial claim it’s a symbol of “heritage,” not racism. So I favor publishing photographs of the confessed killer (without his name) waving this symbol of racism, and I favor linking to his racist diatribe. (I commend to your attention John McIntyre’s post on the topic.) Update: I have edited this paragraph after being informed by Doug Fisher in an email that the “Stars and Bars” was a specific flag of the Confederacy, and not the one flying at the Capitol. Doug, who covered the issue for years for AP in South Carolina, recommends the Wikipedia entry on Confederate flags for a full understanding of their variety and history.
I favor shining a light in the dark corners of our society where racism lurks. And I favor denying attention-seeking murderers the infamy they crave. It’s a tough balance, and I write about this not to criticize editors and news directors who consider the issues and decide differently than I would. I just hope editors will consider that attention is just what these evil thugs want.
Reblogged this on CURIOSIDADES NA INTERNET .COM.
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Reblogged this on dannysimongo.
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I as a life-long journalist have some real heartburn about completely leaving out the name of criminal suspects, minor or major. Where do you draw that line? Should we avoid ever reporting Hitler’s name for fear of creating new Hitlers? Do they become Voldemort, where we dare not speak their name? Where is this new, social media-driven line drawn? I get into editorial judgment debates with readers all the time now – and I think I can enlighten them about how and why we do (or don’t do) things, by engaging in that kind of transparency. But heck, there are people who think no arrested suspect should ever be named until they are convicted. How that’s supposed to work and properly inform the public I don’t know. I liked how USA Today handled it Friday – the victims were above the fold, but the suspect was still P. 1. To not talk about who they are and what led them to this dark place to me is somewhat akin to saying mental illness is a bit problem “but whatcha gonna do, crazy is crazy.” It’s a grand topic for the Solutions Journalism movement. But the idea that media should get ‘in trouble” with the public for doing our jobs and calling out evil or crazy or what have you by name – I see another side to that, and it’s a very unnerving trend, akin to the idea that “objectivity is a myth” – something I will fight to my dying breath as a journalist.
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Barney, thanks for your comment. But you didn’t address anything I actually wrote.
I never suggested not naming evil dictators. Whatever their motives, they already have attention before they have the power to kill in the mass numbers they do. My point was not about people like Hitler, but people who vault from obscurity to infamy, like the killers of Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Santa Barbara and Charleston. In every case, gaining attention is clearly a motive and media coverage repeating their names and showing their pictures provides that attention. That is not comparable either to naming Hitler or to saying we won’t name other criminal suspects (who generally don’t want attention).
You didn’t address the points I made. Do you think news organizations should name all rape survivors? Do you think we should never grant confidentiality to sources? If you recognize valid reasons not to name people in those cases, why are the reasons less compelling in coverage of mass killings?
Also, you used quotations in making some sort of point that media should get “in trouble” for doing our jobs. I don’t know whom you are quoting, but it wasn’t me. I didn’t use those words or suggest that in any way. You’re getting that from someone else or from your imagination.
If you’d care to address what I wrote, I’d be happy to engage a debate on this. I don’t pretend this is an easy topic on which all journalists agree. But I’d prefer that comments address my actual points, rather than imagined ones.
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Steve, I happen to think I was right on point.
My point about the move you gave kudos to is – how and where do you draw the line? Mass killers as opposed to “everyday criminals”? Where’s the cut-off point – five victims, 10?
And do you have evidence to prove that a prime motivation of mass killers is notoriety they see given to others who do so? Or is it by and large a product of mental illness that is not grounded in reality – including the reality of what crimes do or don’t get widespread media coverage?
Who’s to say the killer of a long-nagging wife isn’t “seeking attention” from the media and world to show how awfully he was treated? But domestic violence would rarely fall into this “no names!” policy.
You could even say that not using their names/photos “protects” the uninvolved family and friends of the KILLER from further heartache (or that would be an unintended consequence.) But again, where do you draw the line? Why should the families/friends of “lesser” criminals be exposed to that, and not those involving the most heinous of crimes?
Critics of such policies could call it censorship — and indeed, perhaps even futile, as in a world of social media, the traditional media’s refusal to name names and post photos would do little to keep such “fame” from happening in the world of Facebook, etc. Will the media urge everyone to hide the mass killers’ identities? Some would say that’s “protecting” them from the glare of public scrutiny.
Sorry, but I just always see gray where some see black and white. And unintended consequences, and logical disconnects (which why I have a blog called “Rejecting the Blame Society.”) If I thought hiding the names and photos of mass killers would result in fewer of them, that’d be another matter. But could that even be provable, or would this all be a matter of emotion and anecdotal evidence? Heck, I’m also the guy who says the death penalty doesn’t prevent murder – not because of endless delays and refusal to impose it, but because figuring people won’t kill if they know they will be executed is an argument made to the logic of “people in their right mind” – and if murder is usually a crime of passion (or mental issues), then it will have little impact. But instead, the death penalty itself is an emotion-driven “answer,” a feel-good vengeance of the all-emotional kind I see in Facebook comments when I see what “the people” would do to child or animal abusers if they could. They are logical, understandable emotions – but to me should not drive public or journalistic policies.
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This response was on point, Barney. The first one, with a quotation that wasn’t from me, and an absurd reference to Hitler, was nowhere close.
You make your points well (this time), and I’ve already made my points, so I’m not going to debate them. But I will address your “how and where do you draw the line?” question. You draw it exactly the same as you draw it in deciding whether to name rape survivors or grant confidentiality to sources or acknowledge a journalist’s kidnapping: You consider whether the circumstances justify withholding a fact you’d normally report. I think the attention-seeking nature of these rare crimes is clear enough to justify withholding their names. It’s not drawing a line. It’s exercising judgment.
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Thanks. Here’s another unintended consequences – if professional, responsible journalists don’t report on the name, background etc. of such suspects, you leave it in today’s social media-driven world to the amateurs, the commenters, those seeking to fill the information vacuum but who don’t do the due diligence of checking the info to be sure it’s factual. So misinformation rules, without validated reporting to counter. Not the intention, but likely the result.
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Your argument would be stronger, Barney, if we had any track record of correcting all the misinformation you describe by reporting accurate and complete information. And, of course, sometimes the misinformation comes from media rushing to be first, as when professional media misidentified the Sandy Hook shooter.
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Reblogged this on Another Unwilling Artist.
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Great post! I hope the Charleston massacre will mark a turning point in race relations in our country, bringing us all together like never before. We are different and there is beauty in our diversity.
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PS – I know, Steve, that you are speaking to the specifics of this case – and I appreciate you calling it a “tough balance.” I am just trying to relate to it in a broader, ‘we should do or consider this in these cases” policy context, and some of the many negatives that come to mind for me. We shouldn’t of course base making that judgment call purely on what would “please” most of our readers/viewers – or anger fewer of them. As that also is a slippery slope, in a different direction. We of course should never mind making folks mad “for the right reasons” – to uphold valid journalism principles, etc. I just believe it’s a valid discussion point and should be considered in a general context, so as to have some guidelines to consider when the issue arises next. And if it cannot be reasonably proven to some degree that deleting the names/photos of mass killers (as opposed to focusing primarily on victims, which I consider a good balance) will stem mass violence, then why should we be doing it? Because it “feels right”? Well it doesn’t feel right to me.
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