On April 20, 1999, twelve students and a teacher were shot and killed by two shooters at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. In the following days, the shooting dominated both local and national news coverage, becoming the second most covered event in the United States that year—only behind President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Details about the two shooters – including their names, motives, and background – were constantly being circulated in the media. The two had become “famous” across the country. Within the next month, 400 related incidents, including fake bomb threats to schools and students praising the shooter’s actions, were reported to police nationwide.
All of these incidents stemmed from the extensive coverage which the media was giving the two shooters. This is not an isolated occurrence. There is a mass shooting in America an estimated once every 12.5 days – each one of these shootings receives news coverage on a similar scale to that of the Columbine shooting. The media’s method of covering violent criminals, such as mass shooters and serial killers, inspires others to take similar actions – such methods should be altered to shift the focus away from the criminal.
For decades, news outlets have reported mass killings by detailing the life and motive of the perpetrator. Many journalists argue that this is a necessary practice as it can help to uncover the killer’s evolution and pinpoint areas where they could have been stopped. They reason that by exposing this information, future murderers could be prevented from forming in the first place. However, when a mass shooting is covered by the media, the probability that a similar event will occur increases over the next 13 days. This increase is due to the concept of generalized imitation, which the American Journal of Public Health defines as the idea that individuals learn and copy behaviors which they observe or are aware of (Meindl and Ivy).
By providing excessive amounts of information regarding a mass shooter’s upbringing and manifesto, the media exposes more people to the perpetrator’s violent behaviors. In doing so, the media increases the likelihood that someone will try to follow in their footsteps. The media causing generalized imitation can be seen in the case of the Virginia Tech University shooting in 2007, in which a student ended the lives of 32 of his peers. During the police investigation, it was revealed that he had idolized the Columbine shooters and desired to repeat their actions on a larger scale. Following the shooting in 2007, others who committed, or attempted to commit, actions of mass violence cited the Virginia Tech shooter as their inspiration. Generalized imitation would also suggest that even if a mass shooter does not explicitly claim a previous criminal as their inspiration, they may still have been subconsciously influenced by media coverage of such individuals.
Not only does the way in which the media covers mass murders influence others to do the same, it also gives killers the attention they so desperately crave. A study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that most killers are driven by their narcissism and strive to attain the infamy that the media provides. News outlets run the pictures of the killer, spread their ideologies, and share their life story to thousands, if not millions, for days after their actions were committed.
This feeds directly into their aspirations. This effect can be seen in a killing spree that a 24 year-old British man went on in 2004. The man’s murder spree resulted in the death of four people, including an elderly couple. When questioned by the police as to his motives, the murderer claimed that he wished to obtain a celebrity-like status that other serial killers, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, possess. Fame is a motivator for many serial killers and mass shooters, and the media’s continuous coverage of them pushes many to commit violent acts in an attempt to obtain notoriety.
Some journalists acknowledge the role which the media plays in contributing to violent crimes, and believe the current manner in which the media covers such events to be extremely outdated. Two such journalists are Kelly McBride and Amaris Castillo. The two are writers for the National Public Radio (NPR) and suggest that news outlets can still convey all the necessary information about a crime, while using the name of the criminal as sparingly as possible. In fact, the two believe that the majority of coverage on mass shootings does not even require the name of the perpetrator, “With a fully developed set of standards around mass shootings, I could envision 90% of stories would not name the shooter, and the other 10% would be squarely focused on his background” (McBride and Castillo). This sentiment proves that the coverage which mass shootings and other violent crimes receive is avoidable, and that it is more than possible to properly report on an incident without granting the criminal an abundance of attention.
The procedure that the media uses to report on mass shootings and the actions of serial killers is incredibly flawed and leads to an inflation of individuals seeking to imitate the actions of previous violent criminals. Hours of coverage is dedicated to providing information regarding the criminal’s personal life and the evolution that brought them to kill – giving them the exact attention they seek. The media, through creating generalized imitation and providing enormous amounts of attention, inspires criminals to take action. News outlets need to adapt their methods of coverage to remove the perpetrator as much as possible. If this is not changed, killers will continue to be produced due to the media’s negligence.
