Sandy Hook has three major issues swarming around its center of grief — gun control, mental health care and the media.
I take issue with the media. I hate the 24 hour news cycle. It exists to sell advertising and the best way to get viewers is to spread fear.
Can this happen in your town?
Do you know a mentally ill person?
Is your child’s school safe?
Copy cat killings happen a lot. The media understands the power it has in reporting these things and the way in which they do it (making killers celebrities), but what else can they do, right? They are giving people the news coverage they want and providing a service. The media will not be silenced. Until one of their own is at risk.
The news of Richard Engel and his crew going missing in Syria was kept out of the news, to help protect the crew and other reporters overseas.
“NBC tried to keep the crew’s disappearance a secret for several days while it sought to ascertain their whereabouts. Its television competitors and many other major news organizations, including The New York Times, refrained from reporting on the situation, in part out of concern that any reporting could worsen the danger for the crew. News outlets similarly refrained from publishing reports about a 2008 kidnapping in Afghanistan of David Rohde of The New York Times and a local reporter, Tahir Ludin. The two reporters escaped in June 2009 after seven months in captivity.”
I’d like to think just one news agency would be willing to change the way it reports these kinds of tragedies in the same way it has made exception for Richard Engel and other reporters in danger. They could still make money if they made a big deal out of their new approach. They could be the one news outlet that refuses to discuss the killer. Then people who want to learn about and honor victims can watch through that news outlet and avoid feeding the fear machine.
Since this is unlikely, that leaves one good way to stop the copy cats and the mentally ill that want to go down with glory. Take the celebrity out of mass murder. Take the fear mongering out of this media quagmire.
How? Turn it off. If the ratings are gone, the coverage is gone.