#TERROR ATTACKS: MASS KILLINGS: The Gift from the Media which keeps on giving.
One of the main causes of the recent Terror attacks in France and Germany, and the Mass shootings & other terror related attacks in the United States is being ignored.
Terrorists & mass shooters are mostly sad disaffected people seeking one thing. Publicity for themselves and/or their cause.
And thanks to television news networks like +CNN International +CNN +Sky News +BBC News and many others, publicity for these cowardly attackers is guaranteed. Their rolling sensationalist coverage of these events is a gift which keeps on giving.
STOP THE ROLLING COVERAGE
We need to stop rolling and sensational news coverage of these events. Instead of labelling the incident as breaking news, we should report the incident at the end of the news in a matter of fact manner with enough detail to describe what occurred, but without television pictures or rolling coverage.
Terrorists need publicity and television coverage to create fear. The voyeuristic rolling coverage of these events, which serves no purpose and which is now becoming boring, serves the terrorists' agenda. Let's deny them the oxygen of publicity.
WE DON'T NEED TO KNOW THE NAME OF THE KILLERS.
How about calling the killers Columbine 1 & 2, Nice number 1, Orlando 1, and Paris 2. Name them after the city, add a number, and perhaps a year. Paris 2015 #1.
We don't need to know about the personal lives of these people. A brief note that they were disaffected, suffered from a mental illness, or were motivated by terrorism is more than enough. We don't need any more information about terrorists or mass killers.
The idea that by splashing the sad, socially maladjusted lives of mass killers and terrorists on television we can learn how to prevent these attacks in future is a lie the media spread to justify their voyeuristic rolling coverage.
We will not be poorer for not knowing the names of killers and terrorists, nor do we need to have their life stories covered in a blow by blow fashion.
The mass exposure of the killers and terrorists lives on the media serves only to encourage the next misfit who is contemplating suicide to go out in a mass of media glory. Why we keep helping them to do this is a mystery to me.
IT'S NOT ABOUT GUNS: IT's ABOUT THE PUBLICITY
In the United States, mass shootings and terror attacks often lead to a debate about gun control, or the lack thereof in that country.
Let me say this. The guns debate has no real place when it comes to mass shootings or terror attacks in the US. That's not to say that gun control in the US is not a problem. It is. But, gun control will NOT stop mass killers, school killings or terror attacks.
The 9/11 hijackers used box cutters. The Nice terrorist used a bus. Some mass killings have involved axes or swords. So, anyone who thinks that a terrorist or mass killer who wants to kill but cannot get hold of a gun legally or illegally will not find another way to kill a whole lot of people is sadly misguided.
The truth is this. Guns might create the MEANS to kill. But the media's coverage does something far, far worse. The rolling coverage of previous killers/terrorists lives and actions creates the DESIRE to kill in the minds of disturbed or disaffected people, who are often already suicidal and who wish to go out in a blaze fo glory.
SEE my blog where I deal will all these issues and in which I have links to studies etc.
http://siegfriedwalther.blogspot.co.za/2015/10/mass-shootings-in-us-news-media-are.html
Finally, the media's coverage of these attacks and shootings have started to become monotonous. The details of one attack fades into those of previous attacks. The details of one killer and his motives are as uninspiring as the previous. The reports showing one neighbour or family member who swear that the killers seemed normal always seem to have a deja vu aspect to them.
Oh, and with respect to all the victims of these attacks, I personally have no interest in the details of their lives. If they weren't newsworthy prior to their unfortunate fate, they don't suddenly become interesting or newsworthy now. Coverage of how the victims lived and died is not news, in my humble view. It's voyeurism. But this, paragraph and the previous one, I concede is a matter of opinion. The rest of what I say above, however, I submit is fact.
S G WALTHER 27 JULY 2016
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