News coverage of high-profile mass shootings on American cable news has adopted near clockwork patterns: first comes shock and the scramble for information, followed by calls from communities and legislators for new gun restrictions, then reporting and speculation about the motives of the shooter (“Is evil or mental illness to blame?”). The remainder of the time is spent toggling between analysis of why the US sees these shootings so regularly, how the shooter got their gun and which signs of violence could have been noticed earlier.
Rinse and repeat.
The cycle has become the norm as the frequency of mass shootings has increased in the past decade, forcing researchers – and responsible journalists – to grapple with the question of what repercussions consistent, all-day coverage of the carnage, followed by stories about partisan debates and the shooter’s motivations, may have.
Epidemiologists and social scientists have found that gun violence at the community level can be contagious, with one shooting begetting the next. Is there such a thing as media contagion?
There’s little research into the relationship between news coverage and the prevalence of shootings. In 2015, a team of researchers found that mass shootings were contagious and are more likely to happen in the two weeks after another shooting.
But it is unclear whether this period of contagion is related to news coverage. Dr Sherry Towers, a data scientist and the lead researcher on the study, explained that the team found that shootings didn’t cluster geographically, but chronologically, suggesting that exposure to the “contagion” is widespread. Towers suspects that aspects of media coverage play a role, but cautions that more research is needed to establish the relationship.
“There is not really enough [money] to go around to all of the researchers who could be looking into this,” she said.
A 2021 study sponsored by the US Department of Justice found that news coverage has little impact on whether or not one mass shooting will be followed by another. Rather, the research concluded, coverage of these events is more likely to increase fear and anxiety among the public, not drive more shootings.
Social media sites and online forums pose a greater risk of spreading and reinforcing violent ideas than news media, experts say.
Whether it’s through the spread of racist and sexist ideologies or the ability for users to extensively research the backgrounds, motivations and planning strategies of shooters, the internet can provide would-be shooters with an unfettered guide for how they can carry out their own mass attacks.
Fringe online message boards such as 8chan and tech platforms including YouTube and Instagram face continued scrutiny for how they handle footage of mass attacks, shooters’ manifestos and endorsements of violence.
“Internet culture is a part of it in that there are places that people can go to get horrible ways of thinking reinforced,” said Elizabeth Skewes, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The people who end up carrying out mass killings are able to find information about shooters without guidance from traditional news outlets, in online spaces where violent and extremist content propagates, but that doesn’t mean traditional media shouldn’t be thoughtful about the way they cover mass shootings, argued Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI agent and profiler.
“There’s value in educating people and letting them know that these cases are getting worse, they’re more frequent and grandiose,” she said. “But do we want to be careful? Yes.”
In recent years, family members of those killed during mass shootings have called for news outlets to adopt a “no notoriety” approach to the coverage of mass shootings that would end – or at least limit – the publication of the name, photos and ideologies of mass shooters.
Indeed, these calls as well as reports of mass shooters making note of the coverage previous perpetrators have received have moved national and local news outlets to be more cautious about publishing a shooter’s photo or using their name frequently in their coverage.
But widespread coverage that focuses on the shooter and partisan gun debate still “contribute to the noise level” around a shooting rather than allow space for stories that keep that names of victims alive and publicize resources that can help communities heal, said Skewes, who specializes in covering traumatic incidents like mass shootings.
“That isn’t helpful. I understand that TV has to fill the airtime but it seems like the potential is to do more damage than good,” she added.
Though mass shootings, especially those that happen in schools, malls and workplaces, are seen as inherently newsworthy, reporters and editors should intersperse their coverage with columns or television segments that explain the thinking behind their coverage decisions, Skewes said.
“It’s important in terms of public knowledge and understanding the series of events,” she added. “When they’re transparent about how and why they do the work they do it also makes the media more accountable to themselves.”
And during breaking news and follow-up coverage of a mass shooting, journalists should talk about warning signs of potential violence, particularly among young men who may struggle with isolation and suicidal ideations, and have alluded to plans to commit violence. “It could be something someone says or writes,” O’Toole said of how and where these indicators appear.
“[Members of the news media] really do have to put out what these warning behaviors are,” she continued. “You can’t assume that all is well. [Shootings are] happening so frequently that we can’t just say, ‘We didn’t see it coming.’”
