Journalism vs. public safety?

Ever wonder why mass shootings became so common? The Columbia Journalism Review reported this week that there is a “growing body of contagion effect research” that indicates news coverage is endangering the public.

A focus on the shooters is particularly frowned upon by scholars of contagion effects. Interestingly, a comment by University of Oregon journalism professor Nicole Dahmen about the Washington Post’s coverage of the Jacksonville shooter at a video game tournament could also be applied to the Las Vegas concert shooter: “The article reads like a glorified celebrity profile. Why does it give us eight paragraphs of what a celebrity, high-profile gamer he is?”

Following the Las Vegas shooting, coverage of the shooter was very heavy, even in Reno where news crews closely followed the search of his home in the Somersett neighborhood.

CJR reported that the copycat effect that some journalists have trivialized has been well documented. “A 2015 study by a group of Arizona State University researchers found that, after a public mass killing involving firearms, the probability of another such attack increased for the next 13 days.”

The Washington Post declined to be interviewed, but Los Angeles Times managing editor Scott Kraft told CJR, “As journalists, we’re in the business of collecting information and publishing information. Knowing who the perpetrators of these mass shootings are, what motivated them, those things are important for the public to know.”

But Western New Mexico University psychology professor Jennifer Johnston said the news coverage doesn’t provide that:

“We have hundreds of stories of these young men. There is nothing new to report. There are no new amazing secrets. It’s a copycat kind of choice they make, to escape from one’s pain and to exact revenge on those who wronged them.… I know that journalists want to report the who, what, when, where and why, but I just don’t think it matters who did it, except in a court of law.”

Last month, after Las Vegas Metropolitan Police closed its investigation of the shooting, National Public Radio reporter Vanessa Romo wrote, “Police investigating the October 2017 deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas said they’ve been able to answer the ‘who, what, when, where and how’ of the massacre, but as the end of the probe was announced on Friday, officials still could not explain the ‘why.’”