What a cheery note to start your Monday. Sorry it’s been so long. I suck.

Have a look at the video found here; in particular at the portion starting at 5 minutes and 24 seconds (It’s only about 3 minutes long). Watching this, the obvious point to note is the juxtaposition of what Dr. Park Dietz (the forensic psychiatrist) has been advising the media do for the past 20 years and what has actually been done for the past 20 years.

In the video, he has suggestions for what the media can do to reduce the likelihood of copycat murders.

Don’t start the story with sirens blaring, don’t have photographs of the killer, don’t make it 24/7 coverage, do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero, do localise the story to the effected community and make it as boring as possible to every other market because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder we expect to see one or two more within a week

This, it would seem, is the exact opposite of what mainstream news channels achieve. In an interesting article about him from 1994, Dietz had something similar to say about other media outlets.

Dietz takes the popular media and their effects on behavior seriously. He believes that slasher movies, violent television programs, and news reports–especially television news reports–contribute to American society’s problems with serial killers, sexual sadists, stalkers, and product tamperers.

I would imagine that defending a new channel would invoke arguments of freedom of press, human interest and the necessity of propagating information (can anyone think of any others?). Similar to reporting on such mass-murders is the reporting on suicides. The media’s treatment of a suicide can also profoundly affect its aftermath. The phenomenon of “cluster suicides” has been quite well studied and is very much dependant on how people who have committed suicide are portrayed. Conspiracy theories aside, Kurt Cobain’s death was represented as illogical, foolish and contemptible. Marilyn Monroe was seen as beautiful, in her prime and glamorous. While there were very few copycats (in terms of method and profile) of Cobain, there was a cluster of young (primarily blond) women who committed suicide following Monroe’s death, most of them in similar a manner.

News paper
Photo owned by Andrea Peverali (cc)

Am I suggesting that we censor the media? No, of course not. I do think, however, that journalists need to take responsibility for what they portray. The words that one writes and the images that one shows can have a profound and lasting effect on an audience. There’s a good guide here for journalists about reporting suicides (found here.), which I will summarise as:

  • Avoid sensational headlines, images and language
  • Publicising details of suicide methods can encourage imitation
  • Avoid speculation, especially about ‘celebrity’ suicides
  • Consider context
  • Challenge myths about suicide
  • Mention suicide prevention agencies

With such guidelines being in place for suicide as a result of evidence of the media’s influence, perhaps we need similar concrete and evidence-based advice for reporting events such as school shootings? Any opinions on this?

Maybe I should think about turning this into what I study. Ah psychology, how mystifying you are to me.