Sandy Hook did n’t look like Sandy Hook , or at least the Sandy Hook that I recognize . I once worked in Newtown , Conn. , as a newsperson for the local day-by-day newsprint . I lived ( still do ) 10 minutes from the center of Sandy Hook , a red - brick section of Newtown terminated with old-hat shops , eateries , offices and 18th - century homes . Sandy Hook is where I made friends , quaffed beers and fished the Pootatuck River .
On Dec. 15 , 2012 , I did n’t recognize the place . As I drove down Glen Road , which curves around the bucket along Pootatuck , I spied CNN ’s Wolf Blitzer , his white beard awash in lights , talking into a mike . Wolf was n’t the only newsperson in the " Hook . " idiot box artificial satellite trucks from Canada , New York City and environs unknown crowded Church Hill Road , Sandy Hook ’s principal thoroughfare . reporter from Japan , Germany , France and goodness knows where else , begged for on - camera , on - gentle wind , on - the - book interviews . " How do you feel ? " " Did you ever think a thing like this could go on here ? "
Chances are you know what draw the media to this obscure footling burg . Evil visit the day before as a crazed son gunman remove 26 people , include 20 children , at Sandy Hook Elementary School . Hours later , the media commence its nonstop , carpet - bombing insurance coverage of the tragedy . finally , Blitzer et al . result . On to another storey . I know the practice session well .
A month later , 3,000 miles ( 4,828 kilometers ) away , a 16 - year - honest-to-god boy took a gun into a Taft , Calif. , high school and shoot a classmate . When I take about the offense , I could n’t aid but wonder whether the 24/7 Sandy Hook media coverage had trigged something in the scholarly person ’s head that January day , causing him to pull the initiation . Was this a emulator crime ? Was the Sandy Hook news coverage to blame for the Taft shot ? We ’ll never get it on .
That ’s the job link up so - call aper crime to news coverage . Most studies cite anecdotic grounds that news written report of sensory offense generate like types of assault in the days and weeks after .
" epidemic of crime postdate the telegraphy , " criminologist Gabriel Tarde said in the former 1900s , first explicate the phenomena he termedsuggesto - imitative assaults[source : Surette ] . Although the telegraph is disused , Tarde ’s suggesto - imitative Assault now seem to follow the airwave , cable televisionand the Internet .
Monkey See, Monkey Do
At first , he was a nobody , a new everyman . Like most of us , he walked the streets unnoticed , another walker on life ’s sidewalk . But on a July Clarence Day in 2012 , the accused hit man became somebody when he walk into an Aurora , Colo. , dramaturgy and opened fervor , wipe out 12 multitude and wounding 58 others . Within days , the existence knew all about James Holmes . Reporters described him as a lone hand , a graduate - schooling dropout and a former high - school soccer player . They probed into every dark recession of Holmes ’s aliveness try on to learn as much as they could about the aver shooter .
Was all the aid inadvertently inspiring the next individual to commit a similar barbarousness ? At the time , many critics recollect so . " How often must we see the alleged murderer ’s name in print and his face show in photographs from happier times ? " ask James Alan Fox , a world - famous criminologist , in ablog post . He cover , " It is dead reasonable to shed light on the tragical issue without a media spotlight on the alleged assailant . It is shameless , if not severe , to transform an apart nobody into an infamous somebody who may be revered and admire by a few folks on the fringe . "
Let ’s get something straight . Copycat crimesare not a 21st- , or even a twentieth - century , invention . The first such criminal offence were document during the tardy 19th 100 , when stunning cases , including theJack the Ripper execution , pore the man ’s care [ origin : Helfgott ] . In the 1920s , fear that media outlets were in some manner influencing people to commit criminal offense sparked investigations and censorship drives [ source : Surette ] .
In 2004 , Loren L. Coleman , in the book " The Copycat event : How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow ’s Headlines , " fence that the news show medium boost others to copy destructive behavior . The medium ’s " if it hemorrhage , it chair " attitude , Coleman writes , leads to ape killings . " The media are driven by story of death , " Coleman writes . " The media , like a monster devilfish look for its next dupe , search around trying to calculate out from what trap its next repast will hail from . It is this form of media atmosphere that allow the copycat effect to flourish … " [ sources : Coleman , Kopel ] .
In the populace of commercial journalism , the " if it bleeds it leads " mantra is all too common . The greater the slaughter , the greater the reporting . It ’s the nature of news , a price , I suppose , we pay for living in a free society . Hence , Wolf Blitzer , Brian Williams and Matt Lauer descend on a flyspeck New England community of interests that no one had hear of before . expert say that such overreporting plays straight into the culprit ’s leaning for recognition .
The Nature of Copycats
So , we are left with the shrewish interrogative sentence : Is the connection between news and offence real ? The answer is a resounding " maybe . " Research into the phenomenon is restrict because it ’s difficult to link the two . For acopycat crimeto be real , the perpetrator has to have been exposed to medium insurance coverage of the initial crime , which is often hard to document . Moreover , the imitator criminal has to have incorporate major elements of the first assault , such as the age or case of dupe , method and even the motivation , into the ape crime . To make affair more complicated , a copycat criminal offense might be erroneously tag , while a unfeigned emulator offence might go unnoticed [ source : Surette ] .
Still , you ca n’t ignore the horde of anecdotal evidence to hint there is a connection . Consider the uptick in self-annihilation among young women in 1962 after the death of Marilyn Monroe . Experts trust the 2002 Washington - country snipers might have promote alike criminal offense in Ohio , Florida , Britain and Spain . In plus , a serial publication of school shootings in the later nineties ended in 1999 with the carnage at Columbine High School in Colorado . The shooters had many affair in uncouth [ source : Farhi ] .
Such stories are just the tip of the murderous iceberg . research worker seem to take the link between news reporting and copycat killings . " Some citizenry do get estimate that they had n’t had before and are willing to assay them out , " Howard Zonana , a Yale prof , told the Washington Post . " We ’re all susceptible to [ metier ] influence , to a degree . It could be that someone is disgruntled enough and sees that he can go out in a big blast of fame . "
One research worker , Dr. Park Deitz , says , on average , widespread news coverage of a aggregated execution causes one more aggregative murder within two workweek . He says some people sit , watch and read the news reporting " with gunman on their hip and a hit list in their mind . " Deitz says they feel a special affinity with the perpetrator and resolve that like military action is the solution to their own problem [ source : Chivers ] .
For their part , journalists say putting mass killers under a microscope helps lodge by bespeak out what the murderers had in common . word reporting also can serve as a fomite for change , as was the case in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting . Coverage of the massacre exposed flaw in Virginia ’s mental health system . Columbine made teacher , counselors and school executive more cognizant of tumultuous students [ source : Farhi ] . Sandy Hook has forced us all to relook atgun lawsand genial health issue .
So what ’s a club to do ? Some say the sensitive should patrol itself to reduce the sensationalism of the slaughter . terminate the catchy nicknames and music . hold on putting the alleged murder ’s name in print and refuse to show his photograph . newsperson should write and broadcast story that promote healing and savvy .
Sociopaths read the newspaper and watch TV news all the time . It ’s up to responsible for journalists to be aware of what they compose and say when they enshroud a mass cleanup .
Lots More Information
When a tragedy , such as the Sandy Hook shooting , take place only miles from your doorstep , the emotions it engenders are raw and brittle . Such was the lawsuit in my modest section of the world in December . Years ago , I would have relished being at the scene of the crime gather fact and rush along them into print . That ’s the job of the journalist , after all . And that ’s what I am . Now , years transfer from the everyday pulverization of paper work , I do n’t see that position as sizeable . Perhaps all journalists should step back when cover such calamity . They need to have it away their Word and images have a huge impact .
