Shooter’s videos: to air or not to air?
Jeff Greenfield and Dave Cullen debate whether or not media outlets should show chilling YouTube videos made by Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger.
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As for the propriety of over-publicizing a mass killer's You Tube post, the quandary is as old as history itself. The following link takes us to the tale of one Herostratus who committed arson in ancient Greece in a bid for immortality. The text is by poet Jack Foley, the music by my band, Smooth Toad: http://www.towerjournal.com/winter_10/jack_foley.htm
I trust you have noted that on the same day you broadcast this discussion, the NY Times published a comprehensive and insightful article on Rodgers' struggles. It is precisely to prompt such studies into the motivations of spree-killers that their identities and character quirks must be reported. How else can we learn to prevent similar occurrences? To the claim that by reporting their names the media are giving them exactly what they were striving for, I say the claim is at the least unproven. Assassins probably, but their targets are famous people, not crowds in general.