Juno News - Denying notoriety to mass killers

00:00:00.000 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:06.700 I want to ask the media to avoid mentioning the name

00:00:11.960 and showing the picture of the person involved.

00:00:16.800 Do not give him the gift of infamy.

00:00:20.460 Let us instead focus all our intention and attention

00:00:24.700 on the lives we lost and the families and friends who grieve.

00:00:30.840 You just heard there Justin Trudeau talking about the media

00:00:34.880 and asking the media not to report the name and identity of the Nova Scotia killer.

00:00:41.060 Now this is something that as a person in media I have a bit of an issue with

00:00:45.720 and I'll talk about this in a couple of moments

00:00:47.320 but it really does touch on a no notoriety campaign

00:00:51.120 that's been going around mostly in the United States for the last several years

00:00:55.260 and the campaign that basically aims to take away the notoriety

00:00:59.300 that the media tends to bestow on the perpetrators of mass killings.

00:01:03.960 I want to talk about this with someone who had actually introduced me to this

00:01:07.400 in the wake of the Parkland shooting a couple of years back

00:01:10.560 and that is Professor Jacqueline Schildkraut.

00:01:12.820 She's the author of the book Mass Shootings, Media, Myths and Realities

00:01:16.620 and a professor at the State University of New York at Oswego

00:01:20.260 in the Department of Criminal Justice.

00:01:22.400 Professor Schildkraut joins me.

00:01:23.840 Thank you so much for your time.

00:01:24.960 Really great to talk to you.

00:01:26.320 Of course.

00:01:26.800 Thank you so much for having me.

00:01:28.600 So the no notoriety campaign seems to be based on this idea

00:01:32.940 that if you give killers fame it's going to embolden future killers.

00:01:38.300 Is that an accurate summary?

00:01:40.920 Yeah, for the most part.

00:01:42.080 If you think about it when we look at these individuals

00:01:45.460 and certainly in the case of the Nova Scotia shooter

00:01:47.740 it's still very premature.

00:01:49.640 We don't really know a lot about him in particular.

00:01:52.940 But a lot of these individuals who go out and conduct these types

00:02:00.180 of very public events or public shootings

00:02:03.120 will tell people in advance that they want to be famous

00:02:05.860 and they want to have their name in light.

00:02:08.660 And so it's sort of a twofold thing.

00:02:10.200 Certainly we don't want to incentivize other individuals

00:02:13.100 to go out and carry similar acts.

00:02:14.680 But at the same time we don't want to reward people

00:02:17.060 for doing something like what these individuals are doing.

00:02:21.220 I guess the big challenge that I have with the...

00:02:24.400 Well, I guess there are two.

00:02:25.340 When a politician is asking the media to do it

00:02:27.940 that part of someone in the media doesn't necessarily sit right with me.

00:02:31.960 But there is still a prerogative for media outlets themselves

00:02:35.200 to come up with these policies and guidelines.

00:02:37.960 I think we can look at some absolutely horrendous examples

00:02:40.960 of media doing what I would say is glamorizing.

00:02:44.400 I think that Rolling Stone cover from one of the Boston bombers

00:02:47.980 a couple of years ago is probably one of the more noteworthy examples of that.

00:02:52.020 But I guess what I would ask is,

00:02:53.480 is there a way that the reporting can be done more respectfully

00:02:56.140 that doesn't need to manifest itself as a blanket ban,

00:03:00.760 even if it's self-imposed, on reporting names?

00:03:04.140 Well, so I think that there's a couple of things to take into consideration.

00:03:08.000 Number one is that even the no-notoriety campaign,

00:03:10.280 which was started in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting,

00:03:14.940 has never said complete blackout, blanket, no names ever.

00:03:18.820 There is a value in reporting that as a fact.

00:03:22.780 But I think where the issue comes in and where no-notoriety is really speaking from

00:03:27.520 is you can say it once in the beginning of the story

00:03:30.060 and then simply refer to them as the perpetrator

00:03:32.460 to continue to name them over and over again

00:03:35.340 or to put up their picture.

00:03:37.800 That's where you're putting a face to the name.

00:03:39.840 And the reality is that you can still tell the who, what, when, where, why, and how

00:03:44.540 of a story without having to give somebody credit

00:03:47.440 for doing something so horrific.

00:03:48.920 Yeah, I think that's actually a really important point

00:03:53.380 because a lot of the time when we see these stories,

00:03:56.960 a lot of, like, I would say media reporting tends to go down

00:03:59.600 the killer, the shooter, the perpetrator anyway.

00:04:02.360 So to do that with a bit more intentionality

00:04:04.680 wouldn't be that much of a change,

00:04:06.620 but it would make a difference, it sounds like,

00:04:08.960 in that overall notoriety that the killer is getting.

00:04:12.660 Well, you know, one of the things is that, you know,

00:04:15.040 you have these individuals who are relatively unknown people.

00:04:18.680 And in many cases, completely unknown outside of their own social circles.

00:04:22.580 And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to make sure

00:04:25.200 that people know their name.

00:04:26.420 For instance, I grew up in the Parkland community

00:04:28.860 and our shooter, literally before he went into the school,

00:04:32.460 said, I want everybody to know my name.

00:04:34.520 I want, you know, to be famous.

00:04:36.240 And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.

00:04:39.180 There's nobody in this country and probably the world

00:04:42.020 that doesn't know what his name is.

00:04:43.820 And so if you remove just the identity component

00:04:46.800 where you're not giving them credit for something like that,

00:04:50.100 then that can be very helpful.

00:04:51.680 You can still say all of the facts of the case.

00:04:54.120 The perpetrator, for instance, in Parkland,

00:04:55.980 went into this building.

00:04:57.080 He had this type of gun.

00:04:58.420 He did these actions.

00:04:59.580 And this is how many people died.

00:05:01.060 But you're not giving that individual that, you know,

00:05:04.240 that credit or that glory.

00:05:05.740 What's the view that you have on reporting things

00:05:11.380 like backstory and history of killers?

00:05:14.740 Because I think a lot of the time that's where,

00:05:16.780 in some cases, coverage can look like it's glamorizing

00:05:20.200 or romanticizing a story.

00:05:21.800 And I don't think that's necessarily the intention

00:05:23.620 of these things.

00:05:24.720 But do you think that there should be some holding back

00:05:28.000 on reporting those life stories of some of these people?

00:05:32.280 You know, I don't necessarily think that there needs to be.

00:05:34.980 You know, for me as a researcher, you know,

00:05:37.680 because we don't have access to a lot of, you know,

00:05:40.620 investigatory documents, and oftentimes there's not

00:05:43.740 as much available to the police that there is to the media,

00:05:46.820 which is always very interesting.

00:05:48.380 There is a value in having that information.

00:05:51.600 You know, if we understand what led up to, you know,

00:05:56.440 zero point, then we can try and identify opportunities

00:05:59.720 for intervention in future incidents.

00:06:02.360 I think where it becomes a challenge for those of us

00:06:06.480 in the no-notoriety camp is, number one,

00:06:09.020 the way in which it's presented, you know,

00:06:10.720 certainly this over-glamorization, kind of like you mentioned

00:06:13.460 with the Boston Bomber.

00:06:14.340 Like, we don't need to know if they wore affliction T-shirts

00:06:16.480 and had tousled hair kind of thing.

00:06:19.080 We just need to know the facts.

00:06:21.020 But also I think that there is such an over-emphasis on the shooter

00:06:25.280 rather than also an equal acknowledgement,

00:06:28.580 at the very least equal acknowledgement,

00:06:30.340 of the lives of the people that they took.

00:06:33.000 And, you know, we tend to think about this one individual

00:06:35.380 and all of the bad things that they did,

00:06:37.460 but there's not as much attention paid to all of the good

00:06:40.500 that they took.

00:06:41.280 And, you know, we talk about victims as, you know, numbers, right?

00:06:45.380 Columbine, they're one of 13.

00:06:46.980 Parkland, they're one of 17.

00:06:48.520 Now in Nova Scotia, they're going to be one of 22

00:06:50.820 or whatever the final death toll ends up being.

00:06:53.500 And the reality is that they're not one of anything.

00:06:56.120 They are humans.

00:06:56.980 They have stories.

00:06:58.060 And those stories also need to be told.

00:07:01.620 That's so key.

00:07:02.760 And I'm glad it's something you've done in your work as well.

00:07:05.560 And I know that it must be very difficult for you

00:07:07.840 having to rehash some of these things.

00:07:09.380 But, you know, I've seen you mark anniversaries

00:07:11.560 and bring victims' names.

00:07:13.260 And for me, I mean, I have to admit that I get a bit ashamed

00:07:16.120 when I look at some of these victims that you talk about

00:07:18.880 from cases going back years.

00:07:20.620 And I could tell you the shooter,

00:07:22.060 but I couldn't name a single victim from any of these cases.

00:07:25.460 You know, it's really interesting.

00:07:27.620 After Parkland, which obviously for me

00:07:30.260 is a very different sort of beast, if you will,

00:07:32.140 because it's where I'm from,

00:07:33.660 I can remember being in a meeting

00:07:35.300 with one of our task forces here.

00:07:37.580 And there happened to be a reporter

00:07:38.800 who's done a lot of stories for the New York Times.

00:07:41.460 And she just kept rattling on

00:07:43.740 with the Aurora shooter's name.

00:07:46.120 And at that point,

00:07:46.820 it was maybe a month out of the shooting.

00:07:48.180 So personally, on a personal level, I was very raw.

00:07:50.520 And I literally said to this room

00:07:52.120 with like the most high-powered people in our city,

00:07:55.060 listen, we're on the fifth floor of this building.

00:07:56.820 I will bet you guys every penny in my bank account,

00:07:59.620 go downstairs and ask anybody the Parkland shooter's name.

00:08:02.860 And then ask him to name,

00:08:04.320 ask that person to name one person that he killed.

00:08:06.880 Because they're not going to know,

00:08:08.280 but I know all 17.

00:08:09.880 And I understand that my connection is different.

00:08:11.960 But, you know, even just learning about one victim,

00:08:14.480 you know, I've gotten to not only, you know,

00:08:16.520 learn about them and share their stories online,

00:08:18.880 but many of the families I've connected with.

00:08:21.180 I've learned about Hannah Ehlers

00:08:22.480 from Beaumont, California,

00:08:24.460 and her three amazing children and her husband.

00:08:26.900 And, you know, all of these different people

00:08:28.800 that had lives and had stories

00:08:30.480 and people who have lost loved ones

00:08:32.560 in very, very horrific ways beyond their control.

00:08:35.200 When you look at that no notoriety campaign,

00:08:40.400 if more media outlets and individuals adopt this,

00:08:43.180 is there a risk that it could have an inverse effect

00:08:45.960 where shooters that do want fame realize

00:08:48.120 they have to up their game

00:08:49.500 and be the worst and the deadliest

00:08:51.660 and go so far

00:08:53.340 that they would then get the notoriety they seek?

00:08:58.080 That's a really interesting question.

00:08:59.920 I think that, you know,

00:09:02.080 we're sort of already seeing an element of that

00:09:04.680 because they do study one another.

00:09:07.100 And certainly as my research has shown,

00:09:09.420 you know, the media,

00:09:10.960 blankedly, of course, we used one source,

00:09:13.180 but there tends to be a greater emphasis,

00:09:16.880 even just in the amount of coverage

00:09:18.580 or the placement of coverage

00:09:20.040 of those shootings that are more lethal.

00:09:23.160 You know, if somebody commit or kills two people,

00:09:26.240 that's not going to be covered the way Las Vegas was

00:09:28.800 with 58 people or now 59 people,

00:09:31.980 you know, and same with Parkland,

00:09:34.300 you know, had 17 people.

00:09:36.020 But earlier that year,

00:09:37.640 the shooting in Marshall County, Kentucky,

00:09:39.680 had two people.

00:09:40.660 They weren't talked about any which way the same.

00:09:43.300 And so, you know,

00:09:43.820 I think that we're already seeing that element.

00:09:46.380 So I don't know that removing that incentive

00:09:48.920 would really change things one way or another,

00:09:51.500 because if the practice was,

00:09:52.720 we're going to limit the name

00:09:54.000 no matter how many people you kill,

00:09:56.800 you know, certainly that might just blankedly work.

00:10:00.000 I mean, you know, I hope.

00:10:02.040 Do you find that all of these shooters

00:10:04.620 really are very similar to one another

00:10:07.280 or is every shooter created differently?

00:10:10.540 I think every shooter is created differently

00:10:12.940 in many respects,

00:10:13.840 but there also are similarities

00:10:15.640 and the similarities come more

00:10:17.900 within the way in which they go from,

00:10:20.840 you know, seemingly normal person to mass killer.

00:10:24.480 There is a model out there from Dr. Reed Malloy,

00:10:29.200 who is a preeminent scholar in this field,

00:10:31.520 and it's called the Pathway to Violence Model.

00:10:33.680 And basically, if you look at,

00:10:35.260 you know, each case,

00:10:36.540 while there may be differences

00:10:37.620 in terms of, you know,

00:10:39.020 social or demographic characteristics,

00:10:41.320 the general trajectory is the same.

00:10:43.900 They all start with some type of a grievance,

00:10:45.940 whether it's perceived or real,

00:10:47.920 you know, something really happened,

00:10:48.980 like they lost their job

00:10:49.940 or they think they're bullied

00:10:51.140 or they think they're ostracized

00:10:52.540 or, you know, whatever the case may be.

00:10:55.580 And at some point after they're sitting there,

00:10:57.500 you know, kind of festering on it,

00:10:58.700 they make a decision

00:10:59.320 that they're going to exact revenge

00:11:01.180 against that grievance

00:11:02.100 in a very specific way.

00:11:04.400 And so then, you know,

00:11:05.200 their pre-attack preparations

00:11:06.800 tend to, again, follow the same patterns

00:11:09.180 in terms of weapons gathering

00:11:10.880 and probing and breaching into locations

00:11:12.880 and seeing what they're going to do

00:11:14.480 and their logistical planning.

00:11:15.860 And all of these different steps

00:11:17.860 along this pathway,

00:11:19.040 which, again, we learn about

00:11:20.500 through the way in which

00:11:21.860 their backstories are told,

00:11:23.480 allows us to identify opportunities

00:11:26.020 for intervention

00:11:27.380 or for a way to de-escalate it

00:11:29.740 before it becomes a full-blown shooting.

00:11:32.700 In Nova Scotia, of course,

00:11:34.400 I think the day after this shooting ended,

00:11:36.920 we already had politicians

00:11:38.040 talking about gun control,

00:11:39.500 which in the Canadian context

00:11:40.600 is already very strict.

00:11:42.200 So it's not as simple

00:11:44.000 as linking it to, you know,

00:11:45.400 how you might see a response

00:11:46.520 in some American jurisdictions.

00:11:48.560 Do you think it is too simplistic

00:11:50.260 when oftentimes people focus

00:11:52.140 on one aspect

00:11:53.280 after one of these shootings?

00:11:55.640 Oh, absolutely.

00:11:56.620 You know, when we talk

00:11:58.060 about mass shootings,

00:11:59.040 there are a lot of things

00:12:00.400 that all kind of go into play with it.

00:12:03.520 You know, there's a lot of factors

00:12:05.020 and they all happen to converge

00:12:07.060 at precisely one, you know, point in time.

00:12:10.400 You know, certainly there are people

00:12:11.880 who will argue,

00:12:13.180 well, if there were no guns,

00:12:14.340 there would be no shootings.

00:12:15.260 And that might be true,

00:12:16.820 but that doesn't mean

00:12:17.640 there's no weapons.

00:12:18.560 You know, there's other forms of weapons.

00:12:20.720 We saw in Charlottesville, Virginia,

00:12:22.200 here in America,

00:12:23.420 that in the absence of a gun,

00:12:24.640 someone used a car.

00:12:26.500 You know, the same day

00:12:27.120 that Sandy Hook happened

00:12:28.180 at a Chinese elementary school,

00:12:31.840 somebody knifed 22 children

00:12:33.500 the exact same day.

00:12:35.100 So, you know, offenders will find a way,

00:12:37.680 regardless of what their weapon selection is,

00:12:39.780 if they want to inflict maximum casualty

00:12:44.520 or maximum harm.

00:12:45.860 And so looking beyond just the means

00:12:48.960 to what is the reasoning behind it

00:12:51.500 is extremely important.

00:12:52.780 And that's why it's so multifaceted.

00:12:54.540 It's not just one thing,

00:12:56.040 but collectively,

00:12:57.620 as in not only our nation,

00:12:59.860 but I think within the world,

00:13:01.860 everybody seems to hone in

00:13:03.220 on the very first thing

00:13:04.040 because that's the easiest thing to go for.

00:13:05.860 Everything that is going on

00:13:07.620 in the process that leads them up to it

00:13:09.220 is far more complex

00:13:10.340 and it needs a much more protracted

00:13:12.440 and long-ranging conversation.

00:13:16.480 One of the things

00:13:17.420 that I certainly see in myself,

00:13:19.300 and I'm sure you see it

00:13:20.320 in a lot of other people,

00:13:21.680 is that there is this desire for answers

00:13:24.240 and nothing ever satisfies that.

00:13:26.380 And how have you come to terms with this?

00:13:28.960 I mean, you're immersed in this

00:13:30.040 more than anyone else is.

00:13:31.300 How do you, in your own mind,

00:13:33.320 kind of find peace with this

00:13:34.960 when you just see the evil

00:13:36.000 that exists in the world?

00:13:38.160 You know, I appreciate you asking that.

00:13:40.660 I don't actually get asked that a lot.

00:13:42.360 I think for me,

00:13:44.020 really kind of, again,

00:13:45.320 focusing in on the victims

00:13:46.760 and saying,

00:13:47.280 what can I do from my little place

00:13:49.760 and my little corner in the world

00:13:51.280 to make sure that other families

00:13:53.760 don't have this happen to them?

00:13:55.940 What can I do?

00:13:56.920 And so for me, since Parkland,

00:13:59.220 you know, I've been very focused

00:14:00.660 on emergency preparedness training.

00:14:02.800 When I learned about the fact

00:14:04.140 that, you know,

00:14:05.120 kids in that building

00:14:05.940 had never, ever been

00:14:07.600 through a lockdown drill,

00:14:09.000 the teachers had received

00:14:10.000 very minimal training.

00:14:11.480 And from my perspective,

00:14:12.840 had either of those things happened,

00:14:15.380 that shooting may have had

00:14:16.540 a very different outcome.

00:14:17.880 So I've spent two years

00:14:18.980 training school districts

00:14:20.520 on how to respond in these events.

00:14:22.380 But also, I think for me,

00:14:24.420 it's just realizing

00:14:25.160 that the conversation needs to change.

00:14:28.620 And I work really,

00:14:29.560 really hard to change that.

00:14:30.760 You know, one of the things

00:14:32.000 that I learned

00:14:32.680 in the last two and a half years

00:14:34.580 is the most dangerous thing

00:14:37.040 in all of this is not the gun.

00:14:39.200 The most dangerous thing

00:14:40.300 in all of this is the mentality

00:14:41.780 that it can never happen here.

00:14:43.560 Because the minute that you say

00:14:44.880 it can never happen here

00:14:46.100 is the minute your guard is dropped

00:14:48.460 and you've become extremely complacent.

00:14:51.240 And that's when it can,

00:14:53.020 or, you know,

00:14:53.680 maybe is more likely

00:14:54.720 because you're not as,

00:14:56.440 you know, aware

00:14:57.420 or, you know,

00:14:58.880 kind of thinking about

00:14:59.820 what's going on around you.

00:15:00.900 And that's really the mentality

00:15:02.100 that I've been trying to change.

00:15:03.800 And I still hear people say,

00:15:05.320 you know,

00:15:05.720 one of the big things right now

00:15:07.120 that's come out in America,

00:15:08.220 and I don't know

00:15:08.660 if it's come out up there,

00:15:10.200 is, well,

00:15:11.020 there were no school shootings in March.

00:15:12.680 Well, there was no students in school.

00:15:14.260 So no kidding.

00:15:15.140 There was no school shooting.

00:15:16.240 But that doesn't mean

00:15:17.080 that we're not having mass homicide

00:15:18.480 and we're not having

00:15:19.200 all of these other issues.

00:15:20.460 We seem to, as humans,

00:15:22.460 only be able to focus on one thing

00:15:23.980 and that very worst thing,

00:15:25.240 but not think about

00:15:26.020 all of the other things

00:15:27.040 that are going on.

00:15:28.060 So I just try to use the platform

00:15:29.480 that I've been given

00:15:30.220 to educate people

00:15:31.200 to call these types of problems

00:15:33.040 into focus

00:15:33.640 and hope that even if I can change

00:15:35.400 one person's perspective,

00:15:36.380 it will make a difference

00:15:37.320 in the long run.

00:15:38.880 Well, I think that's

00:15:39.760 a very worthwhile perspective,

00:15:41.360 and I'm glad you were able

00:15:42.360 to share it

00:15:42.820 and also glad you were able

00:15:43.720 to take the time

00:15:44.900 to speak to us today.

00:15:46.620 Joining me on the line,

00:15:47.580 Professor Jacqueline Schildkraut,

00:15:48.980 Professor in the Department

00:15:49.960 of Criminal Justice

00:15:50.820 at the State University

00:15:52.200 of New York at Oswego,

00:15:54.040 also author of the book

00:15:55.160 Mass Shootings,

00:15:56.240 Media,

00:15:56.520 Myths and Realities.

00:15:58.080 Professor,

00:15:58.520 thank you very much.

00:15:59.240 I really appreciate it.

00:16:00.680 Thank you.

00:16:02.200 Thanks for listening

00:16:03.000 to The Andrew Lawton Show.

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00:16:34.200 harbor.

00:16:35.200 I'm doing great.

Juno News - April 23, 2020

Denying notoriety to mass killers

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