Yesterday, NPR’s daily podcast “Up First” featured the pilot episode of a new series called Embedded, which covers the 2018 shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper. Host Kelly McEvers explores how mass shootings have become something that are “almost normal” in society today and asks survivors how they live with something that’s not normal at all.
Selene San Felice, a survivor of the Capital Gazette newsroom shooting in Annapolis, Maryland spoke about the sad reality and aftermath of mass shootings:
“I honestly didn’t expect to be talking with Anderson Cooper today. I thought people would get an Apple News notification and they would just blow it off. This is going to be a story for less than a week. People will forget about us in less than a week.”
San Felice lost five co-workers that day and went on to explain that she was going to need “more than a couple days of news coverage and some thoughts and prayers” to recover. The sad reality is that “people will forget” about the shooting and move on with their lives. This is how the news cycle works.
Recent mass shootings in the U.S. like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and Las Vegas shooting have sparked debate over whether or not the media should be naming the gunmen/shooters. On one hand, naming the shooter can glorify them and have a contagion effect. For example, “The Columbine shooters, in particular, have an almost cult-like status, with some followers seeking to emulate their trench-coat attire and expressing admiration for their crime, which some have attributed to bullying.”
On the other hand, people like Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, is “somewhat sympathetic to journalists’ impulse to cover clearly important and newsworthy events and to get at the truth” and that to blame the media “for this epidemic of mass shootings would vastly oversimply this issue.”
However, when discussing this issue it is important to consider how over-the-top coverage of killers can “unnecessarily humanize them,” according to Northeaster professor James Alan Fox.
I think NPR’s approach to covering this story exemplifies how mass shooting coverage can have a different approach. Rather than floating the story after the breaking news coverage and Capital Gazette vigils, NPR reporters spent two years talking with survivors about how they live their lives on a daily basis to overcome their pain because their “whole lives have been shattered,” according to San Felice.
This shooting specifically targeted people for their occupation as journalists during a time when the President called them “the enemy of the people.” As an aspiring journalist, I think this approach to covering the shooting is important because it allows the survivors stories to live on in the news cycle.
Journalists are rarely the subject of news stories, but listening to this episode gave me hope into how to break the breaking news cycle, which often isolates and forgets about its subjects.
This is the million dollar question when it comes to journalism, specifically when covering these tragedies. Covering the five W’s is hard without the Who which typically anchors the story. But at the same time, it is possible that more harm will be done. It is likely that the name will get out regardless by another publication or on social media or in a trial. That is not to say everyone should follow suit just because others are joining in. I believe that the story should focus solely on the victims, possibly not even the events. Saying “a shooting” is enough sometimes. By divulging more information often politicizes the event. And while gun reform will not be attainable if there…
Lizzy, thank you for covering this topic. This is, in fact, a massive issue within the United States alone. The numbers of mass shootings continue to skyrocket, and an enormous chunk of them are not even on the news. Although for the ones that are on the news, it is essential to take them seriously. Many people have lost loved ones to these horrible shootings, and my heart goes out to them. More people need to get educated on gun control and learn about its effects on the American people.
Great Article Lizzie,
I think this is the unfortunate consequence of having had so many mass shootings occur we have become numb in a sense. I completely agree however that we must try and fight the urge to treat shootings as simply trendy stories in the moment they happen, but not a product of an overarching issue within American society. We always use the argument against gun control "Who's gonna stop the bad guys when we take guns from the good guys?", well the good guys have had guns this whole time, where has the help been? I love this article and agree we cannot let victims be forgotten into history.
Hi Lizzie,
Thank you for calling attention to the issues surrounding the normalization of mass shootings throughout the United States. I agree that over-publicizing has the ability to normalize these situations, but believe that it is still super important to continue to broadcast these horrific acts in order to keep the public educated about the dangers of our country's gun-usage and lack of gun restrictions.
There are so many questions around the proper way to cover and discuss mass shootings in the United States. Overexposure to them does normalize the phenomenon, but the victims of shootings deserve to have their stories told and memories honored.
There are also so many issues with how shootings are reported in relation to race. White shooters who target people based on religion, sexuality, or race are a terrorist threat. They are radicalized by Trump and other alt-right platforms.