Does the American Media overly-sensationalize murderers?

I have been hearing about shootings basically my entire life, but it seems that every other month in America is a new massacre that ensues. For me, it really all started with hearing and learning about Columbine High School. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold laid siege on their unsuspecting High School, laying waste to everything in their path.

Yet...all I could find were stories about them, not the victims. Dylan took this medication, or Dylan was part of this club. Eric said this in such and such and this in his journal.

It's gotten to the point where I am just thinking my god, enough is enough.

Do you think that the media over-sensationalizes mass murderers and does not focus enough on this victims? Is it a journalists fiduciary duty to be thorough when investigating these killers? How much of their life should the public see?

Should killers be on the cover of Rolling Stone, like they are some kind of celebrity?



The media DOES influence people, especially those that we deem mentally ill or disturbed. Take Pekka Eric Auvinen for example. He shot up a school in Finland and killed 8 people. He listed Eric + Dylan as idols of his (so this media saturation is even reaching other countries..which could be even more dangerous).

Cho Seung-Hui, responsible for the Virginia Tech Massacre that killed 32 people (33 including himself), also said Eric + Dylan were "martyrs".

I could go on and on, but that isn't the point. I want to know what you guys think? Does the American media focus entirely too much on these killers, or are they just doing their job?

In a world where it is certainly hard to become famous, it sure isn't hard to become infamous. Is this because this is an inherent, fundamental truth of famous vs infamous? Or is it because you believe the media fuels this?

I tend to think the media really is fueling this fire, sometimes to a ludicrous extent. Basically you have a killer, especially part of a school shooting or something big like the Boston Marathon bombers...that take narcissism to a whole new level.

In my opinion, this is how these people become infamous in America and have their name forever in History:
1. Write a journal, detailing their life, and their deepest, darkest secrets + plans. Talk about their perceived intelligence, the injustices they face, and whatever else their deluded minds have them write.
2. Carry out plan.
3. Kill self to not just avoid incarceration, but to escape any potential questions about motive, mental state, etc. Basically create a cyclical, unsolvable crime (or unexplainable crime) that is left to ambiguous interpretation(s).
4. The American media will spend months, if not years, writing and reporting on it. The killers will be put under a microscope, every facet of their life examined. Victims will be given mentions, if even that, and maybe small stories.
5. Stories will come as more information comes, or the media and political parties will use these attacks to push some kind of agenda (i.e. gun control, medication and mental health based debate, etc.).
Edit: 6 - I believe they do 1 with the knowledge that it will be read one day. They do likely harbor these feelings of injustice, hatred, whatever, but they write it with the knowledge that everyone will be reading it. It will serve as the final medium for their musings and reasons for going down a path of violence. It will cement their legacy in the fact that it will be the last tangible thing they will ever contribute to society, and will be used tirelessly in investigations, and studies by psychologists and other experts. They will be able to create any persona for themselves that they want, and the media will rashly follow these musings as gospel.

So, what do you think ? Am I putting to much stock into this? I personally think killers get way too much attention. So much attention that they garner cult like fans. Women that love these "bad boys" is a big one. There was quite a hysteria from women over the likes of Eric Harris, James Holmes, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, etc. While this might be pointless to consider, as it may not be THAT big of a deal..it does seem that a lot of later murderers "copy" these earlier attacks in an attempt to become infamous like them, or to "one up" them and cause even more chaos and tragedy.

Is there any plausible or possible way that the American media could tone this problem down? Or are they just doing what they're supposed to? Feel free to completely disagree with me if you feel that's the case. I'm just interested to hear your thoughts, Sythe community.

When I say overly-sensationalize -- I mean that they will take any random fact about the alleged shooter or shooters, and try to apply it to something. Sometimes what they are trying to apply it to sounds completely absurd (IE: The shooter liked basketball so he must have liked shooting things!). A classic case of correlation does not imply causation would be my main idea of what the media sometimes does with writing and reporting on killers, hence the "overly-sensationalize" in the title.

Do you think making killers famous makes more killers?

That is something I am not sure about ^^^, but feel free to address it if you wish.

 

In reference to your list below.

I wholeheartedly agree with points four and five. In these situations, media organizations will dissect every bit of information, no matter how insignificant, in order to gain viewers. This is what it all boils down to. They are, in the end, businesses. More viewers means more money and more opportunities to push their (often political) agenda.

As for your first three points, you have to remember that these people are highly unstable. They're often not only trying to become infamous, theyre trying to become infamous so that their thoughts, ideas, and opinions can reach the ears and the eyes of the public. Maybe that's exactly what you're saying and I'm just reading it wrong, but it looked like you were saying they do those things only to garner more media attention, and not because that's how they actually think.

These people have gotten it into their heads that they can be a martyr for their cause, and the months-long 24/7 coverage following these incidents is only perpetuating that ideology.

 

My first three points, I noticed, needed clarification after I posted it. My first three points are meant like this --- I do not doubt that the killers think this way, but I do think that many times, future killers are writing their excerpts with the knowledge that they are going to carry out some kind of an attack, so they will fluff it up a bit and write it for an audience, and amplify their feelings or exaggerate them. For example, something along the lines of "wait until I do this, the whole world will tremble at my superiority. I am doing it for x y and z reasons". Do I think those reasons are invalid? Of course not, I do believe that is what they actually mean/think/believe, but I definitely think there is a tad of hyperbole in these musings. I do not believe that these musings are spontaneous, or naturally occurring. I believe that they are cultivated with the intention that, some day, the whole world will be reading it. They can lay any bread crumbs they please, and psychologists and other people studying it will have only these written passages to go off of. I read Eric Harris' journal, because the psychology of these people interest me, and you could tell that he was writing for an audience, and would warp his writings to adhere to this truth. They will also formulate their experiences with their own warped interpretation, which in turn could lead to completely falsified or fabricated events---which all could lead to a sensationalized account of a killer and a completely wrong reasoning for what led them to carry out such an attack in the first place.

The Isla Vista culprit in California is a prime example of this. He continually belabored the point that women were the root of his troubles. And would tell stories that simply did not seem believable, at all. I definitely feel that he harbored these strong feelings of hatred, but definitely wrote for an audience to get his ideology spread to the whole world. I feel like sometimes, at least, the killers do it for vanity. They know that they'll never be able to say anything again, because most of them plan to kill themselves. So what they instead to is create media, journals, and other content to bolster their impending legacy of infamy.

 

Thanks for the clarification. This only strengthens my belief that much of the blame for the frequency and increased severity of these tradgedies in recent years falls on the media. If we take what you're saying as true, and I believe it is, you'd have to imagine that much of the desire to commit these acts would disappear if the killers knew that their manifestos (for lack of a better term) would receive little to no media attention. Unfortunately this is not the case.

 

Couldn't agree more my dude. I feel like the manifesto, as the media loves calling it, is just icing on the cake for these killers. That's why you see a ton of them doing it. They can cultivate any persona they want out of it, they can describe themselves any way they want to (usually deviating from calling themselves worthless to calling themselves above everything and everyone else). The media puts so much stock into it, that the killer even controls their legacy after death.

I believe that if the media put a lot less stock into what the killer was saying, then maybe sensationalism could be severely reduced, and in turn, maybe some of the vanity and infamy that the killers garner could also be mitigated.

I find it peculiar that the police censor some things, such as the "basement tapes" from Columbine, but let other things be publicly available, such as their journal entries and website + video contents. I find it interesting that the basement tapes were withheld due to "possible copycats", but the ranting and scathing diatribes of Klebold and Harris were made available for everyone to see.

I feel like the police need to internalize these things a lot more, as I'm sure they have the power to do so. Obviously, some documents will be leaked and impossible to withhold, but some documents could easily be concealed, thus already putting a dent in the killers post-death plans of having a metaphorical "last voice".

 

Yea they do. In the past there has been an uptick in violence and copycats after a mass shooting. The media puts these people on a pedestal and others want that too.

 

obviously. let's take the law-abiding legal gun owners guns away because random criminals with illegal guns are killing innocent people.

Guns kill people.
Forks make people fat.

 

A lot of the mass shooting guns were obtained completely legally.