Kopel on Media-Inspired Copy-Cats

Dave Kopel's article for the Rocky Mountain News, "Reducing the risk of copycat killers: How papers can avoid glorifying perpetrators," deserves a wide audience. Here are his five main suggestions:

1. If a killer was seeking infamy, neither his picture nor his words should ever appear on the front page. ...

2. ... [If] photos help readers understand that people who do terrible things are often very ordinary-looking... a single photo on a single day is sufficient.

3. Never run a photo or video which the killer has chosen for his own publicity. ...

4. Do publish a photo showing the disgusting post-mortem condition of the killer, with half his face blown off after he has killed himself or been shot by a good citizen. The photo should appear, not in the printed paper, but on the newspaper's Web site and behind a warning page. Such photos would deglamourize the perpetrators.

5. Although there is some news value in reporting the killer's name initially, there is no need to use the name incessantly. ...