Is Jennifer Johnston right? Think Consequences

Jennifer Johnston, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Western New Mexico University, raises some important issues with her paper titled Mass Shooting and the Media Contagion Effect. Johnson recommends that the media refrain from publishing photos, writings, personal likes and dislikes, family, work, and school history of the suspect in mass killings. Doing this would save lives according to Johnston.

One reader responded to one of the paper's tweets promoting their coverage by showing a picture of the accused and asking: Does LFP have the courage . . . to stop posting happy, smiling images of a known terrorist alongside garbage sympathy pieces? No, because they’re hacks.

Another reader thanked the above Twitter poster and tweeted: I've been trying to say the same on Facebook but they've been closing comment threads on related articles instead of accepting any responsibility for their sympathy pieces.

I worked in the media for more than three decades. Since retiring I have been amazed and saddened at the lack of responsibility shown by reporters who make obvious errors in judgment or get important facts wrong.

In a Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC) article discussing media coverage and of acts of terrorism, the author writes that journalists wish to introduce a fresh new dimension to their stories, as if these stories were not dramatic enough. What is required is accountability: thinking about the consequences of reporting.