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comment by johnnyFive
johnnyFive  ·  2140 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas: At least 8 killed, sheriff says - CNN

Local news should acknowledge that it happened, and then move on. National news should make it a footnote. 50 people die in a suicide bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it gets mentioned and then on to the next thing.

It's not about the victims; they'll be remembered by the people who matter to them (and to whom they mattered) whether it's on the news or not. But we've seen time and again that when you give someone a mass shooter a scorecard, it invites someone else to say "I'm going to get me some of that."

Some of the commenters here would rather feel like their dicks are big and ignore reality. But the thing is, the real world doesn't give two shits about what we want. So for those of us who don't think "cowardice" is a good tool of public policy, we have to figure out what to do.

Consistently, I've seen someone willing to step up and refuse to give notoriety to a mass shooter. The sheriff after the community college shooting in WA did this, but the media ignored him and released the shooter's name anyway.

So the media has to grow up and take some responsibility (either their reporting matters or it doesn't), and we have to stop giving them pageviews. Journalism is ultimately market-driven, and it's up to us to vote with our wallets. It's simple, which is not to say it's easy.