Another day, another mass shooting, and yet another breaking news report in the media speculating the killers’ motives and background. The media's current practice of covering these events has shown significant evidence that more mass shootings will occur within two weeks after one happens, all because of media. This needs to change.
In the past 50 years, mass shootings in the U.S. have been the cause of death for 820 people, 142 of them children and teenagers. There have been 242 guns used by 128 shooters in 40 states. Although each shooting occurred in a different environment, the one thing they all have in common: it was covered endlessly by the news.
When Sandy Hook Elementary shooter Adam Lanza shot 20 children and six adults, every CNN newscast took place in Newtown, Connecticut for a week. The same was true for nearly every network television morning and evening newscast that December. A town that had just seen what the nation was calling, “one of the all-time greatest tragedies,” right above the Oklahoma City bombing and Virginia Tech shooting, became the central news location in the United States. Coverage of other events became an afterthought, even if the information about the shooting and gunman were inaccurate. Any information about the massacre was better than none. The community of Newtown was not alone in wanting answers; all of America was watching and waiting for them too.
When a massacre of this multitude happens, the curiosity of the nation wins over the grieving process for the families affected. Big-name anchors going door to door became a typical sight on a Saturday afternoon for Newtown residents. When the shooters name was confirmed, 20 year-old Adam Lanza became a household name. Today, Adam Lanza has his own Wikipedia page. Since Lanza stormed into Sandy Hook, 555 kids under the age of 12 have died from gunshots, which means that a kid has died by a gun every other day in America. If that's not one of the most terrifying facts you've ever head, then I don't know what is.
Media coverage of mass shootings does not promote awareness to stop violence, it affects the citizens of the U.S., and more importantly, it provides a jolt of inspiration for the next shooter. This past year, CNN posted an article, “Why the U.S. has the most mass shootings,” and the answer was simple: the copycat phenomenon. Specifically they called mass shooting killings, “infections” and that is why it is most likely for mass shootings to occur 13 days after one another. It’s contagious, according to some researchers.
CNN wasn't wrong with their theory either. Just last October, a 26-year-old man took a gun into Umpqua Community College in Oregon and murdered nine people. Authorities later discovered this post he had made before the shooting expressing admiration for the Virginia Tech killer, especially regarding the shooters social-media achievement. The Umpqua Community College killer had said, “His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight."
Wrong. So wrong. I mean, yes that's an accurate statement regarding the current media practices, but that is not what the media should focus on when a mass shooting happens. Fame, status and murder should not go together like they do today. If the media were to report a mass shooting without giving us the name of the perpetrator then we would believe that violent acts only result in harm to many, not the fame of one person because of their harmful actions. Report the facts first and we will have no choice but to evaluate the situation without blaming one specific person, and we can grieve with others involved because we have concrete information, not a biography.
News coverage should take advantage of the event and use it to grieve together as a nation, not debate whether the killer has been planning this for years or if it was spur of the moment. Because at the end of the day, does that really matter? Not really. People have been hurt and a terrible event has occurred, let's start with the facts.
