
US newspapers run more photos of school shooting suspects than victims (2018) - okket
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/news-media/newspaper-photos-shooting-suspects-victims/
======
exabrial
The sad thing about the news industry is that the more extreme stories they
run, the more money they make.

~~~
wallace_f
This graphic has become a recently popular meme on social media, showing how
excessive coverage of extreme black swan-type events has influenced the public
conciousness: [https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-
death-i...](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-in-USA-
vs.-media-coverage.png)

~~~
cheerlessbog
Seems reasonable to me that there's more coverage of terrorism than heart
disease. It's less predictable, more diverse, less within my personal control,
etc. I'm more interested in the one murder in my town this year than in the
hundred deaths from heart disease.

~~~
cheerlessbog
Having said that I personally would prefer more coverage of new ideas,
research discoveries and other more thought provoking topics that also sent so
depressing.

~~~
exabrial
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to turn a profit. One only has to look at the
click bait that's included everywhere these days to see what sells.

------
b_tterc_p
Is this a relevant metric? Why do we want to show pictures of victims? If I
got killed in a shooting I don’t think I would want my picture thrown all over
the news, nor do I think it would be particularly good for my family.

~~~
casefields
People have a knee-jerk reaction that publishing photos glorifies said person.
So to many, the journalists are glorifying the killer and not the victims.

~~~
Voloskaya
How is it a 'knee-jerk reaction' exactly? It seems to me it is well known that
many of the perpetrators indeed do it in the hope of being glorified and being
talked about.

~~~
jjeaff
Well they are definitely talked about. But that's not what glorified means.

They are villified (rightfully so). But perhaps being famous for any reason is
their goal.

------
ronnier
Yesterday, a Virginia Beach city employee killed 12 people at his workplace.
I've seen no pictures of him, I looked at several sources and it seems he's
ignored for the most part.

CNN is running pics of the victims
[https://imgur.com/a/U6A5oCb](https://imgur.com/a/U6A5oCb)

Personally I want to know about the murderer. I don't want this hidden from
the public.

~~~
curtis
> _Personally I want to know about the murderer. I don 't want this hidden
> from the public._

I want to understand what the murderer's motivation was, to the extent that we
can. On the other hand, I'd be happy to know that without knowing their name.
I don't know if that's practical, but keeping the name out of most news
reporting might measurably reduce the murderer's notoriety. I don't know if
that would reduce mass shootings in the future, but it seems unlikely that it
would hurt.

------
alexpetralia
I will leave this great Tweet series by Justin Owings here:

[https://twitter.com/justinowings/status/1134423782314192897](https://twitter.com/justinowings/status/1134423782314192897)

~~~
deogeo
"The press may not be successful most of the time in telling people what to
think, but it is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about."

------
vbuwivbiu
Fact is that shooters and serial killers are idolized by the press and
Hollywood. Every time there's a school shooting (every other week) the press
shows images of the shooter and a bunch of teenagers is inspired to do the
same. We make movies & TV series about serial killers. Scroll through Netflix
and every other thumbnail has a gun. It's constantly reinforced in our minds.

------
elamje
Should people be surprised by that? Turn on any major news channel and you
will instantly see evidence that bad news sells better than good news.

Newspapers are businesses and most have a simple equation in mind when
deciding what content to use: use x s.t. x maximizes profit

Hopefully younger people will start to move away from traditional news sources
as they realize how it skews ones world view towards negativity.

~~~
marak830
IMO they are. I teach k12 esl(pre:edit, kindergarten to year 12 English as a
second language), my highest levels - free conversation we tried a spot where
students would tell us about an interesting news story they had seen, heard or
read about in the last week. We have dropped that idea. 30 students over a
month we're regularly admitting to not actually knowing any real news outside
of their immediate circle.

Note that these students arnt known for slacking off when it comes to
homework, we deliberately didn't set a goal, it was something we planned to
ask in class without notice.

Small sample, absolutely. But it was eye opening for the 4 teachers in this.

Not sure if this will help the conversation, but a little anecdote doesn't
hurt every now and then :-)

~~~
frosted-flakes
Personally, I've actively avoided reading the news lately. It just seems so
pointless--what do I gain by reading about President Trump's latest antics or
how bad the housing market is? I used to read my small city's local newspaper
(hard copy) because it was news that actually applied to me, but it got shut
down a year or two ago (unfortunately).

The only time I'll read the news is during an election, because I want to be
at least somewhat informed.

Otherwise, I might hear about it from others or if it shows up on HN.

------
rdiddly
To the degree that we're talking about actual newsPAPERS (and the use of the
term "front page" leads me to believe she is), this is probably a simple
question of space. If one guy shoots another, you can probably run photos of
both. But if one guy shoots 10, a photo of one shooter takes up a lot fewer
column-inches than photos of 10 victims. If you're really intent on running
photos of all 10 victims, you'll probably scale them down, maybe arrange them
5 x 2 in one panel that's collectively larger than one shooter-photo but
smaller individually.

In other words, mass-shooting victims are pictured less often, and smaller,
for the simple reason that there are more of them. Maybe not the best reason,
but that's precisely my point; no editor _decides_ like "Hey the shooter is
way more important and awesome, let's run his photo up front, and fuck the
victims amirite!?"

This comment certified Hanlon's Razor compliant.

------
finnthehuman
Showing victims vs suspects is a con. It's not a secret how to responsibly
cover shootings in the news, and hasn't been for 30 years.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4)

------
seanmcdirmid
Isn’t that true of any notorious criminal act in any country? It doesn’t seem
like a diversion of what “news” is and what people are interested in reading
about.

------
userbinator
Could it simply be because they want people to be aware of the suspect and
report sightings, in the cases where the suspect hasn't been caught yet?

Victims are harmless. If not caught, the suspect isn't. Hence the latter gets
far more attention.

------
newnewpdro
Isn't it a common practice to not identify minors in the news?

------
jMyles
The upsetting part isn't the presence or absence in media reports of
particular actors in school shootings.

It's the fact that the 23 people killed in school shootings in 2018 - tragic
as these deaths are - have managed to take away all the attention from the
over 3,000 children killed by motor vehicles that year. I can't help but
notice that the media of the US is very reluctant to shine a light on an
epidemic whose solution invariably involves cutting into the profits of its
oil and automobile sponsors.

I understand that we have a desire to handle both problems, but to the degree
that this these are public policy problems, we also need to remember that
opportunity cost (for example, in the form of hearing agendas in legislative
committee scheduling) is very real - every bit of attention on one problem is
indeed a lack of attention on another.

The number of committee meetings in US legislatures (including both houses of
congress) over ridiculous cosmetic gun control laws is absurd, while at the
same time these bodies barely say a word about the extreme petronormative
policies that dominate infrastructure planning and invariably lead to death
and permanent disability for more young children than any other cause.

~~~
jakear
Do you have some actionable ideas on how to prevent automotive deaths? Honest
question.

~~~
jMyles
Indeed I do.

1) Cease all forms of oil and automobile subsidy.

2) (At the federal level) change the structure of infrastructure aid to states
to incentivize pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure over automobiles.

3) Ensure the schools are accessible by pedestrians and cyclists and that they
are located in areas which are surrounded by traffic-calming infrastructure.

4) (at the local level) build more curb-extensions, greenways, chicanes,
diverters, and other structures to get cars away from schools, playgrounds,
and other areas where kids play.

There are sound, scientifically-backed tactics for doing this, but most of
them require getting a place on the agendas of several legislative committees
who are probably too busy talking about banning a particular color rifle or
some other asinine thing.

~~~
gridlockd
Bikes and walking don't replace cars. Can you imagine the commute of someone
in a suburban or rural area, in winter, on a _bike_?

Sure, if you can afford to live in SF or wherever there is enough
infrastructure to support that kind of lifestyle, people have an alternative.
Your proposed solution does nothing for the rest of the population. It would
just make driving more annoying and expensive for them.

~~~
ip26
_Can you imagine the commute of someone in a suburban or rural area, in
winter, on a bike?_

Yeah, I just did it all last winter.

 _It would just make driving more annoying and expensive for them._

Where does the money for these subsidies come? Taxes. What if cutting oil &
gas subsidies came with a proportional (averaged) reduction in taxes?

~~~
gridlockd
> Yeah, I just did it all last winter.

Good for you.

> What if cutting oil & gas subsidies came with a proportional (averaged)
> reduction in taxes?

You can't "cut" subsidies, because there are no direct oil and gas subsidies.
There are favorable conditions (e.g. _lack_ of taxation) that are sometimes
construed as a subsidy and there are externalities (like carbon emissions)
that aren't priced in.

You would have to raise taxes in one place (e.g. carbon/gasoline tax) and then
lower them in another place (income tax?).

However, I thought the point of the parent was to raise taxes to make _less
people drive cars_. My point is that if you do that, most people will still
drive cars, they will simply pay more for it.

~~~
ip26
A carbon tax plus a carbon dividend to the public (just for example) would
leave average drivers paying the same, above average drivers paying more, and
everyone incentivized to drive less, or electric.

------
petoskystone
Welcome to America

~~~
dang
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments or flamebait to HN? You've
done quite a bit of that already, and it's against the site rules and we ban
accounts that do it.

If you'd review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and use HN as intended, we'd be grateful.

You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of the site:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html)

------
Glyptodon
I can't wait until we get to the point where news broadcasts are basically
"bad things happened, but we think it would be best to not get into the ugly
specifics. In the meantime here are some photographs of people who could use
your prayers."

~~~
duality
That's a far cry from "just the facts" reporting. Is that sort of
editorializing in reporting really a step in the right direction?

~~~
Glyptodon
I guess I needed to put a /s since it wasn't clear.

------
lostmymind66
It really depends on the suspect. If the suspect is a white supremacist, it's
all over the news immediately. If it doesn't fit the current narrative, we
might see the suspect 3 days later.

I've been recently paying attention to this and one of the latest shootings
involved a trans student in the process of transitioning. It had barely any
coverage.

There really is a bias in the media that is now bordering on censorship.

~~~
armenarmen
Not disagreeing that shooters who do t fit the narrative get less coverage,
but I’d also point out that the shooting you’re describing in Colorado had a
(thankfully) very low body count

