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To know their names

Chris Harper-Mercer. Vester Lee Flanagan II. Dylann Roof. Aaron Alexis. Adam Lanza. Wade M. Page. James Holmes. Jared Loughner.

We know their names.

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These eight men shared a deep hatred, an apocalyptic supply of firearms and ammunition and histories of “irritability” or “loneliness” before opening fire on innocent civilians. Although we know their names, we are desensitized.

From Connecticut to California, the stories have begun to look like iterations of each other: the surprised, horrified, hindsight-is-20-20 reactions of family and friends of the gunman; a photo of the shooter as an anxious-looking man staring blankly into the camera. The tear-stained testimonials in celebration of the victims’ lives; an image of a candlelight vigil.

After a mass shooting, we retreat comfortably into a strange ritual:

1. Naming the gunman.

2. Investigating his (the overwhelming majority of such massacres have been committed by men) troubled past in an attempt to make sense of his crime.

3. Profiling the victims of his violence.

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This first step, naming the gunman, is the most dangerous. As explicitly understood in this case, the shooter was motivated, in part, by the seduction of the infamous. He admired the gunman who murdered two journalists. The New York Times reported that in a blog post linked to the shooter’s email address, he wrote, “I have noticed that people like him [Flanagan] are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are … Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

The way the majority of major media outlets has covered such atrocities is, perhaps, causing the “copycat effect.” First coined around 1916 due to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, the “copycat effect” refers to criminals who explicitly resemble film villains, urban legends or criminals highlighted by the media.

In the 1960s, a Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura studied the effect between media attention to violent behavior and copycat attempts. He found that children quickly learned to be aggressive if the aggressive behavior was rewarded with attention. In a similar manner, the media attention on certain criminal acts serves as a reward for those who might copy them.

The CDC recently released a “Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media” document explaining the hazards of dramatic diction in reporting on suicide. The report cites a study of Austrian media outlets designing more careful stories about suicides on the subway system, and how the rate of attempts dropped 80 percent during the campaign. The report illustrates the contagion of violence, and how (accidental) glorification may compound it.

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Media outlets, perhaps most of all, are acutely aware of the power of our words. The choice to include certain information must be absolutely intentional. In publishing fully investigative profiles — in this case, complete with photos of his face, hometown and one posing with a gun — of these gunmen, we are highlighting their actions.

Mass shootings are, of course, newsworthy — it is important that these horrors are well investigated in the news. However, we might be able to form a new norm for this specific type of coverage. While it certainly cannot be the direct cause of the violence, it would be prudent (given both the studies about copycat crimes and the notoriously high rate of gun crimes in the United States) to reconsider the words we use to describe such events.

Take a look at The Los Angeles Times, which published a story solely referring to “the shooter” or “the gunman” or “the man.” Imagine if this were the norm for journalistic standards instead of the exception. Moving forward, we should learn to direct the spotlight on the atrocity, not the person who committed it.

I posit that news outlets should follow The Los Angeles Times in deciding to write about the crime without the name of the shooter. Further, news organizations should seriously consider not running profile stories about the shooter. In these grim glorifications, the shooters get their fifteen minutes of fame, enabling and empowering copycat criminals who feel they relate to such stories.

Words are powerful; we can see it in the way we write survivor instead of victim, activists instead of rioters or food assistance instead of welfare. Let’s rethink the way the media covers the words, names and actions of violence intended to inspire.

Azza Cohen is a history major fromHighland Park, Ill. She can be reached at accohen@princeton.edu.