Mark Follman is the national affairs editor for Mother Jones, where he leads an investigative reporting team covering gun violence. He is on Twitter.

There is a growing body of forensic evidence that mass shooters emulate their most infamous predecessors. Not only is this copycat problem far more serious than is generally understood, there are now clear indications that some individuals who plan and carry out these crimes are influenced by sensational news coverage of prior attacks. Their desire for notoriety traces from as far back as the 1999 Columbine massacre to the recent shooting of two TV journalists in Virginia — a first-of-its-kind "social-media murder" that appears to have inspired the suicidal killer in Roseburg, Ore.

If there are steps journalists can take to help reduce the frequency of these slaughters — while still reporting aggressively and robustly — we should seriously consider them.

Some mass shooting victims and law enforcement officials argue that news outlets should refrain entirely from naming the perpetrators or publishing photos of them. But a blanket ban isn’t realistic or appropriate. It's in the public interest for the news media to report on mass shooters, who cause a tiny fraction of America's gun violence but whose actions have a profoundly traumatic impact. We need to understand how and why they commit these crimes if we hope to stop them.

Forensic investigators have found that troubled young men at risk of going on a rampage tend to identify with mass shooters they see on TV and online. Most of us are disturbed or repulsed by images of a killer posing with a gun or sporting a maniacal grin. But aspiring copycats see an antihero who's gone from being a miserable nobody to a world-famous somebody with a few pulls of a trigger.

It's worth asking whether minimizing the use of these images and keeping killers' names out of headlines could help prevent copycats — without diminishing our reporting. We don’t always need to publicize the killer’s video rant or manifesto in full. Summarizing the salient material may in some cases be smarter than propagating a killer’s demented bid for glory.

There is precedent for a taking a different ethical approach. Rape victims and juveniles charged with crimes are rarely named in news reports. Ditto people who commit suicide — another problem with a potent contagion effect. When American journalists are taken hostage overseas, news organizations usually agree not to report on their plight in hopes of ensuring their safety and not jeopardizing negotiations for their release.

Over the past three years, my colleagues and I have spent a great deal of time and effort reporting on mass shootings, including building a comprehensive database of them. Knowing what we do now, we will continue to inform the public while deliberating about how we might avoid contributing to the copycat problem.

Of course, nothing the news media does will end the scourge of mass shootings, which have only one true common denominator: guns. But if there are steps journalists can take to help reduce the frequency of these slaughters — while still reporting aggressively and robustly — we should seriously consider them.



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