Vital Explanations or Harmful Gossip? Finnish Journalists’ Reflections on Reporting the Interpretations of Two School Shootings

Väliverronen, Jari; Koljonen, Kari; Raittila, Pentti

doi:10.1108/s2050-2060(2012)0000007012

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 19 publications

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“…Some other nations, such as Finland and Canada, have already demonstrated that alternative approaches to covering mass shooters are possible. Väliverronen, Koljonen, and Raittila (2012, p. 170) found that, in the wake of the school massacre at Kauhajoki which occurred less than a year after a prior rampage attack in Jokela, Finnish journalists gathered information in a much more considerate manner and “were keener to set limits” in how much of the shooter’s manifesto, videos, and other personal material were discussed in news coverage, due to concerns about copycat effects. In fact, many Finnish media outlets refused to publish the Kauhajoki shooter’s name (Raittila, Koljonen, & Väliverronen, 2010).…”

Section: Is Implementation Realistic?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders

Lankford

Madfis

2017

American Behavioral Scientist

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Prior research has shown that many mass shooters have explicitly admitted they want fame and have directly reached out to media organizations to get it. These fame-seeking offenders are particularly dangerous because they kill and wound significantly more victims than other active shooters, they often compete for attention by attempting to maximize victim fatalities, and they can inspire contagion and copycat effects. However, if the media changes how they cover mass shooters, they may be able to deny many offenders the attention they seek and deter some future perpetrators from attacking. We propose that media organizations should no longer publish the names or photos of mass shooters (except during ongoing searches for escaped suspects), but report everything else about these crimes in as much detail as desired. In this article, we (1) review the consequences of media coverage of mass shooters, (2) outline our proposal, (3) show that its implementation is realistic and has precedent, (4) discuss anticipated challenges, and (5) recommend future steps for consensus building and implementation.

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Section: Is Implementation Realistic?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders

Lankford

Madfis

2017

American Behavioral Scientist

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The Shift from High to Liquid Ideals: Making Sense of Journalism and Its Change through a Multidimensional Model

Koljonen¹

2013

Nordicom Review

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By reading qualitative studies, surveys, organisational histories, and textbooks, one can claim that the ethos of journalists has undergone fundamental changes in recent decades. The “high modern” journalistic ethos of the 1970s and 1980s was committed to the core values of the journalistic profession: objectivity, public service, consensus maintenance, gate-keeping, and recording of the recent past. After the millennium, these central ideals have become more ambivalent and “liquid”: subjectivity, consumer service, the watchdog role, agenda-setting, and forecasting the future seem to be more tempting alternatives than before. This article develops an analytic framework that elaborates the simple narrative from “high modern” to “liquid modern” journalism. Five key elements, namely, (1) knowledge, (2) audience, (3) power, (4) time, and (5) ethics, are discussed and problematized to suggest a more nuanced view of the changing professional ethos of journalism.

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Vital Explanations or Harmful Gossip? Finnish Journalists’ Reflections on Reporting the Interpretations of Two School Shootings

Cited by 2 publications

References 19 publications

Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders

Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders

The Shift from High to Liquid Ideals: Making Sense of Journalism and Its Change through a Multidimensional Model

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