By Darryl Mason
It was once forbidden in newspaper journalism to write that someone had committed suicide, even if they were famous, a prime minister, a movie star. The fear, based in what has long seemed to be pretty solid evidence, is that reports of suicides, particularly famous suicides, inspires more suicides. The Copy Cat Effect.
It was also once believed that killing sprees, particularly gun massacres, in the news inspired yet more gun massacres, especially so if the news media coverage went ballistic.
Overkill = More Kills.
From Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, only last year :
You have to wonder if other news media, besides CNN, know this is true and go hard and heavy on pumping up The Name & Fame of mass killers, not only because American gun massacres can be ratings blitzkriegs, but because such heavy rotation notorious-making killporn will keep those gun massacres coming, if only for a short while.
What other explanation could there be for what we've seen across the news media spectrum after the Arizona assassinations?
Think of those warnings from the forensic psychologist above as you watch the evening news tonight on the Arizona assassinations, and tomorrow night, the night after, when another American gun massacre will probably have killed many more if that psychologist's predictions turn out to be all too true.
Who should be blamed then? Politicians? Bloggers? Or the hypersterical news media?
A close friend of the alleged Arizona assassin :
"I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that.".
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