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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| waynehead wrote: |
Terrible tragedy.
Reminder: violent crime has plummeted over the past few decades in the US. Sensational media coverage, OTOH ... |
Has it plummeted, or has it merely been redirected and ignored? Mass incarceration coupled with not factoring most of the crimes that occur in prisons into the statstics make the statistics look nicer, sure, but that doesn't mean the crimes don't happen. If you don't care about incarcerated people at all -- if they literally stop being human in your eyes once they are deemed to have violated the law -- then okay, it's fair enough to say that violent crime has declined. I for one do not see things that way. |
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waynehead
Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Location: Jongno
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| Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:20 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1
Take from these statistics what you will.
My point was simply that there is a disproportionate amount of media coverage with respect to violent crimes especially when you consider the dramatic declines in crime rates over the past few decades.
I cannot with confidence dispute the dubious claim that crimes that take place within prisons are not considered in national statistics. Nor would I try to argue, in any way, in favor of the United States' draconian and racist justice/penal system. It does seem unlikely, however, that the roughly 9000 fewer murders/year (comparing 1992 to 2011) are all hidden away behind prison walls. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| waynehead wrote: |
| It does seem unlikely, however, that the roughly 9000 fewer murders/year (comparing 1992 to 2011) are all hidden away behind prison walls. |
I thought we were talking about violent crime rates, not how often murders were successful? Every assault, rape, attempted murder, or violent theft which occurs in a prison is still a violent crime. Yet if you look at the listed methodology on your link, you can see why they wouldn't be included in the estimates:
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Methodology
■The data used in creating these tables were from all law enforcement agencies participating in the UCR Program (including those submitting less than 12 months of data).
■Crime statistics for the nation include estimated offense totals (except arson) for agencies submitting less than 12 months of offense reports for each year.
■The 2011 statistics in these tables are consistent with those published in Tables 2 and 4.
Offense estimation
These tables contain statistics for the entire United States. Because not all law enforcement agencies provide data for complete reporting periods, the FBI includes estimated crime numbers in these presentations. The FBI estimates data for three areas: Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), cities outside MSAs, and nonmetropolitan counties. The FBI computes estimates for participating agencies not providing 12 months of complete data. For agencies supplying 3 to 11 months of data, the national UCR Program estimates for the missing data by following a standard estimation procedure using the data provided by the agency. If an agency has supplied less than 3 months of data, the FBI computes estimates by using the known crime figures of similar areas within a state and assigning the same proportion of crime volumes to nonreporting agencies. The estimation process considers the following: population size covered by the agency; type of jurisdiction, e.g., police department versus sheriff’s office; and geographic location.
In response to various circumstances, the FBI has estimated offense totals for some states. For example, problems at the state level (e.g., noncompliance with UCR guidelines, technological difficulties) have, at times, resulted in data that cannot be used. Also, efforts to convert to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) have contributed to the need for unique estimation procedures.
A summary of state-specific and offense-specific estimation procedures is available in the Estimation of state-level data section of the Methodology.
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Moreover:
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Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
Further information: Uniform Crime Reports
The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program, established in 1927, is a summary-based reporting system that collects data on crime reported to local and state law enforcement agencies across the United States. The UCR system indexes crimes under two headings: Part I and Part II offenses. Part I offenses include: murder and non-negligent homicide; non-lethal violent crimes comprising robbery, forcible rape and aggravated assault; and property crimes comprising burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. Part II offenses include fraud, forgery/counterfeiting, embezzlement, simple assault, sex offenses, offenses against the family, drug and liquor offenses, weapons offenses and other non-violent offenses excluding traffic violations.[5]
There are fundamental limitations of the UCR system, including:[6]
Inaccuracy: UCR statistics do not represent the actual amount of criminal activity occurring in the United States. As it relies upon local law enforcement agency crime reports, the UCR program can only measure crime known to police and cannot provide an accurate representation of actual crime rates.[7]
Misrepresentation: The UCR program is focused upon street crime, and does not record information on many other types of crime, such as organized crime, corporate crime or federal crime. Further, law enforcement agencies can provide inadvertently misleading data as a result of local policing practices. These factors can lead to misrepresentations regarding the nature and extent of criminal activity in the United States.[8]
Manipulation: UCR data is capable of being manipulated by local law enforcement agencies. Information is supplied voluntarily to the UCR program, and manipulation of data can occur at the local level.[9]
As a response to these and other limitations, a new system of crime data collection was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of the UCR system. The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system that will collect more comprehensive and detailed data on crime from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. As it is still under development, NIBRS coverage is not yet nationwide.[10] |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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| waynehead wrote: |
| My point was simply that there is a disproportionate amount of media coverage with respect to violent crimes especially when you consider the dramatic declines in crime rates over the past few decades. |
True. I agree with you. The U.S. is becoming much more safe, which is great. However, mentally deranged people will always exist. Access to guns makes them dangerous/deadly.
Good thing this guy didn't have a gun:
https://tv.yahoo.com/news/slasher-attacks-japan-pop-girl-group-akb48-fan-040448455.html |
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wishfullthinkng
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 12:17 am Post subject: |
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pogo-stick jumping jesus his delusional "manifesto" was awful. i seriously think this guy never mentally matured past the age of 10 and his writing and mindset really show it.
the entire thing was "she did this and i hated her for it". hey dude here's an idea, stop being a reclusive dick and maybe you wouldn't get punished... and for the love of zeus stop saying the word "unfair". you got what you deserved.
he was a twisted try-hard and an envious bitter little man who felt entitled to everything and anything without having to earn it and didn't realize that the bad things in life should have helped him grow, not become even more bitter and entitled. the world is a better place without him. |
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Ralph Winfield
Joined: 23 Apr 2013
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 1:57 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
I read his 170pg essay last night. Not unibomber quality stuff, but sufficiently descriptive for me to diagnose him as a crazy, narcissistic, asshole.
He was completely nuts. Very angry. Consumed with his inability to live the ideal life that Hollywood sold him (ie his view of college as a big frat party where thin blondes with big boobs throw short nerds some vag). He hated his roommates b/c the argued with him and he said he's stab them to death (he did). He hated his brother b/c he was going to get more ass then him (this realization is what caused him to plan the killings, see pg 127). His parents divorced, his dad was basically absent. He had aspergers. Saw three shrinks in 2014. I assume on meds.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/225960813/Elliot-Rodger-Santa-Barbara-mass-shooting-suspect-My-Twisted-World-manifesto
His parents (don't know if it was mother or father) called the cops on him in the recent past. They knew he was a timebomb. |
He's an Malaysian-British immigrant. His actions give more members of the immigration reform movements in the U.S. "reason" to rally in front of statehouses across America as it's a bit coincidental that many of the mass murders in America since the early 1990's have been committed by immigrants from Asia. What a shame for the nice people who have made a new home for themselves in the U.S. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 5:49 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
In some sense Kuros is right. I think its worthwhile to try to understand what happened in an objective manner, because stuff like this takes on a life of its own and becomes co-opted so quickly. There will be narratives that he was this or that, or this or that could have stopped it, when really if you take a look at the actual person most of the narratives fall apart.
I sympathize with the idea that if the press didn't mention the killers there would be less copycat crimes, but this simply will not happen, human curiosity is too strong, and short of censoring information about it, it will continue. With Columbine, you are right, however later the correct information became public. If we can't stop the information from being published, which we can't, the next best thing is for it to be honest and not used in a gratuitous political manner, which might also unfortunately be wishful thinking. |
I do not think news of the shooting should be totally repressed. This isn't China, nor should it be like China.
Nevertheless, I do not see why we should just allow rampage killers to have it entirely their way.
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181702252120052?mobile=y
| Quote: |
Contrary to the common assumption, writes author Michael D. Kelleher in his 1997 book "Flash Point," mass killers are "rarely insane, in either the legal or ethical senses of the term," and they don't typically have the "debilitating delusions and insidious psychotic fantasies of the paranoid schizophrenic." Dr. Knoll affirms that "the literature does not reflect a strong link with serious mental illness."
Instead, massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, " 'collectors of injustice' who nurture their wounded narcissism." To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.
Whereas serial killers are driven by long-standing sadistic and sexual pleasure in inflicting pain, massacre killers usually have no prior history of violence. Instead, writes Eric W. Hickey, dean of the California School of Forensic Studies, in his 2009 book "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," massacre killers commit a single and final act in which violence becomes a "medium" to make a " 'final statement' in or about life." Fantasy, public expression and messaging are central to what motivates and defines massacre killings.
Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.
What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control. |
There was an experiment in relation to subway suicide prevention.
| Quote: |
There is a precedent for this approach in dealing with another form of violence: suicides. A 2003 study led by Columbia University psychiatrist Madelyn Gould found "ample evidence" of a suicide contagion effect, fed by reports in the media. A 2011 study in the journal BMC Public Health found, unsurprisingly, that this effect is especially strong for novel forms of suicide that receive outsize attention in the press.
Some researchers have even put the theory to the test. In 1984, a rash of suicides broke out on the subway system in Vienna. As the death toll climbed, a group of researchers at the Austrian Association for Suicide Prevention theorized that sensational reporting was inadvertently glorifying the suicides. Three years into the epidemic, the researchers persuaded local media to change their coverage by minimizing details and photos, avoiding romantic language and simplistic explanations of motives, moving the stories from the front page and keeping the word "suicide" out of the headlines. Subway suicides promptly dropped by 75%.
This approach has been recommended by numerous public health and media organizations world-wide, from the U.K., Australia, Norway and Hong Kong to the U.S., where in 2001 a similar set of reporting guidelines was released jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health and the surgeon general. It is difficult to say whether these guidelines have helped, since journalists' adherence to them has been scattered at best, but they might still serve as a basis for changing the reporting of massacres. |
Here are some recommendations.
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Never publish a shooter's propaganda. Aside from the act itself, there is no greater aim for the mass killer than to see his own grievances broadcast far and wide. Many shooters directly cite the words of prior killers as inspiration. In 2007, the forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner told "Good Morning America" that the Virginia Tech shooter's self-photos and videotaped ramblings were a "PR tape" that was a "social catastrophe" for NBC News to have aired.
Hide their names and faces. With the possible exception of an at-large shooter, concealing their identities will remove much of the motivation for infamy.
Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. While most shooters have had difficult life events, they were rarely severe, and perpetrators are adept at grossly magnifying injustices they have suffered. Even talking about motive may encourage the perception that these acts can be justified.
Police and the media also can contain the contagion of mass shootings by withholding or embargoing details:
Minimize specifics and gory details. Shooters are motivated by infamy for their actions as much as by infamy for themselves. Details of the event also help other troubled minds turn abstract frustrations into concrete fantasies. There should be no play-by-play and no descriptions of the shooter's clothes, words, mannerisms or weaponry.
No photos or videos of the event. Images, like the security camera photos of the armed Columbine shooters, can become iconic and even go viral. Just this year, the FBI foolishly released images of the Navy Yard shooter in action.
Finally, journalists and public figures must remove the dark aura of mystery shrouding mass killings and create a new script about them.
Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families. Reports should shift attention away from the shooters without magnifying the horrified reactions that perpetrators hope to achieve.
Decrease the saturation. Return the smaller shootings to the realm of local coverage and decrease the amount of reporting on the rest. Unsettling as it sounds, treating these acts as more ordinary crimes could actually make them less ordinary.
Tell a different story. There is a damping effect on suicide from reports about people who considered it but found help instead. Some enterprising reporters might find similar stories to tell about would-be mass shooters who reconsidered. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
In some sense Kuros is right. I think its worthwhile to try to understand what happened in an objective manner, because stuff like this takes on a life of its own and becomes co-opted so quickly. There will be narratives that he was this or that, or this or that could have stopped it, when really if you take a look at the actual person most of the narratives fall apart.
I sympathize with the idea that if the press didn't mention the killers there would be less copycat crimes, but this simply will not happen, human curiosity is too strong, and short of censoring information about it, it will continue. With Columbine, you are right, however later the correct information became public. If we can't stop the information from being published, which we can't, the next best thing is for it to be honest and not used in a gratuitous political manner, which might also unfortunately be wishful thinking. |
I do not think news of the shooting should be totally repressed. This isn't China, nor should it be like China.
Nevertheless, I do not see why we should just allow rampage killers to have it entirely their way.
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181702252120052?mobile=y
| Quote: |
Contrary to the common assumption, writes author Michael D. Kelleher in his 1997 book "Flash Point," mass killers are "rarely insane, in either the legal or ethical senses of the term," and they don't typically have the "debilitating delusions and insidious psychotic fantasies of the paranoid schizophrenic." Dr. Knoll affirms that "the literature does not reflect a strong link with serious mental illness."
Instead, massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, " 'collectors of injustice' who nurture their wounded narcissism." To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.
Whereas serial killers are driven by long-standing sadistic and sexual pleasure in inflicting pain, massacre killers usually have no prior history of violence. Instead, writes Eric W. Hickey, dean of the California School of Forensic Studies, in his 2009 book "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," massacre killers commit a single and final act in which violence becomes a "medium" to make a " 'final statement' in or about life." Fantasy, public expression and messaging are central to what motivates and defines massacre killings.
Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.
What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control. |
There was an experiment in relation to subway suicide prevention.
| Quote: |
There is a precedent for this approach in dealing with another form of violence: suicides. A 2003 study led by Columbia University psychiatrist Madelyn Gould found "ample evidence" of a suicide contagion effect, fed by reports in the media. A 2011 study in the journal BMC Public Health found, unsurprisingly, that this effect is especially strong for novel forms of suicide that receive outsize attention in the press.
Some researchers have even put the theory to the test. In 1984, a rash of suicides broke out on the subway system in Vienna. As the death toll climbed, a group of researchers at the Austrian Association for Suicide Prevention theorized that sensational reporting was inadvertently glorifying the suicides. Three years into the epidemic, the researchers persuaded local media to change their coverage by minimizing details and photos, avoiding romantic language and simplistic explanations of motives, moving the stories from the front page and keeping the word "suicide" out of the headlines. Subway suicides promptly dropped by 75%.
This approach has been recommended by numerous public health and media organizations world-wide, from the U.K., Australia, Norway and Hong Kong to the U.S., where in 2001 a similar set of reporting guidelines was released jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health and the surgeon general. It is difficult to say whether these guidelines have helped, since journalists' adherence to them has been scattered at best, but they might still serve as a basis for changing the reporting of massacres. |
Here are some recommendations.
| Quote: |
Never publish a shooter's propaganda. Aside from the act itself, there is no greater aim for the mass killer than to see his own grievances broadcast far and wide. Many shooters directly cite the words of prior killers as inspiration. In 2007, the forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner told "Good Morning America" that the Virginia Tech shooter's self-photos and videotaped ramblings were a "PR tape" that was a "social catastrophe" for NBC News to have aired.
Hide their names and faces. With the possible exception of an at-large shooter, concealing their identities will remove much of the motivation for infamy.
Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. While most shooters have had difficult life events, they were rarely severe, and perpetrators are adept at grossly magnifying injustices they have suffered. Even talking about motive may encourage the perception that these acts can be justified.
Police and the media also can contain the contagion of mass shootings by withholding or embargoing details:
Minimize specifics and gory details. Shooters are motivated by infamy for their actions as much as by infamy for themselves. Details of the event also help other troubled minds turn abstract frustrations into concrete fantasies. There should be no play-by-play and no descriptions of the shooter's clothes, words, mannerisms or weaponry.
No photos or videos of the event. Images, like the security camera photos of the armed Columbine shooters, can become iconic and even go viral. Just this year, the FBI foolishly released images of the Navy Yard shooter in action.
Finally, journalists and public figures must remove the dark aura of mystery shrouding mass killings and create a new script about them.
Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families. Reports should shift attention away from the shooters without magnifying the horrified reactions that perpetrators hope to achieve.
Decrease the saturation. Return the smaller shootings to the realm of local coverage and decrease the amount of reporting on the rest. Unsettling as it sounds, treating these acts as more ordinary crimes could actually make them less ordinary.
Tell a different story. There is a damping effect on suicide from reports about people who considered it but found help instead. Some enterprising reporters might find similar stories to tell about would-be mass shooters who reconsidered. |
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Ideally, this is all correct. However, it is a bit unlikely. Once the information gets out there, there is no putting it away. Rather than ceding the conversation to the irrational, sensational, or partisan, I think it is worthwhile for the reasonable to point out how ridiculous the current narrative is, to try to neutralize their exploitation of tragedy for their own ends. This is probably a bit unrealistic as well. None of this media stuff is new, there was a media circus over Jack the Ripper as well. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 6:59 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
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. . .
Here are some recommendations.
| Quote: |
Never publish a shooter's propaganda. Aside from the act itself, there is no greater aim for the mass killer than to see his own grievances broadcast far and wide. Many shooters directly cite the words of prior killers as inspiration. In 2007, the forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner told "Good Morning America" that the Virginia Tech shooter's self-photos and videotaped ramblings were a "PR tape" that was a "social catastrophe" for NBC News to have aired.
Hide their names and faces. With the possible exception of an at-large shooter, concealing their identities will remove much of the motivation for infamy.
Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. While most shooters have had difficult life events, they were rarely severe, and perpetrators are adept at grossly magnifying injustices they have suffered. Even talking about motive may encourage the perception that these acts can be justified.
Police and the media also can contain the contagion of mass shootings by withholding or embargoing details:
Minimize specifics and gory details. Shooters are motivated by infamy for their actions as much as by infamy for themselves. Details of the event also help other troubled minds turn abstract frustrations into concrete fantasies. There should be no play-by-play and no descriptions of the shooter's clothes, words, mannerisms or weaponry.
No photos or videos of the event. Images, like the security camera photos of the armed Columbine shooters, can become iconic and even go viral. Just this year, the FBI foolishly released images of the Navy Yard shooter in action.
Finally, journalists and public figures must remove the dark aura of mystery shrouding mass killings and create a new script about them.
Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families. Reports should shift attention away from the shooters without magnifying the horrified reactions that perpetrators hope to achieve.
Decrease the saturation. Return the smaller shootings to the realm of local coverage and decrease the amount of reporting on the rest. Unsettling as it sounds, treating these acts as more ordinary crimes could actually make them less ordinary.
Tell a different story. There is a damping effect on suicide from reports about people who considered it but found help instead. Some enterprising reporters might find similar stories to tell about would-be mass shooters who reconsidered. |
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Ideally, this is all correct. However, it is a bit unlikely. Once the information gets out there, there is no putting it away. Rather than ceding the conversation to the irrational, sensational, or partisan, I think it is worthwhile for the reasonable to point out how ridiculous the current narrative is, to try to neutralize their exploitation of tragedy for their own ends. This is probably a bit unrealistic as well. None of this media stuff is new, there was a media circus over Jack the Ripper as well. |
Why is it unrealistic to regulate the media's reporting of rampage killings? Please be as specific as possible. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Why is it unrealistic to regulate the media's reporting of rampage killings? Please be as specific as possible. |
1) First Amendment- obviously
2) It might be possible to overtime build up enough of a taboo around it- such as exists for giving the name of underage people, however there is a huge demand for this information because of human curiosity, and the likelihood that all of the many many media sources available would all refrain from publishing the information is minimal.
3) Human curiosity- already mentioned above, but bears repeating. As soon as one site puts out the information the others will follow or lose market share. A few might not, and many would probably complain about the first source that broke the story, but if history is an indication this is the pattern that will follow.
4) If no information is provided that will leave the killer a blank slate- which will allow partisan groups to project their fears, desires, etc. onto the killer to an even greater extent, giving even more freedom for the tragedy to be exploited by all comers.
etc. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 10:20 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
Why is it unrealistic to regulate the media's reporting of rampage killings? Please be as specific as possible. |
1) First Amendment- obviously |
The First Amendment is an obstacle, not a bar, to the regulation of speech. Any prohibition on speech must pass strict scrutiny.
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To pass strict scrutiny, the law or policy must satisfy three tests:
It must be justified by a compelling governmental interest. While the Courts have never brightly defined how to determine if an interest is compelling, the concept generally refers to something necessary or crucial, as opposed to something merely preferred. Examples include national security, preserving the lives of multiple individuals, and not violating explicit constitutional protections.
The law or policy must be narrowly tailored to achieve that goal or interest. If the government action encompasses too much (overbroad) or fails to address essential aspects of the compelling interest, then the rule is not considered narrowly tailored.
The law or policy must be the least restrictive means for achieving that interest, that is, there cannot be a less restrictive way to effectively achieve the compelling government interest. The test will be met even if there is another method that is equally the least restrictive. Some legal scholars consider this "least restrictive means" requirement part of being narrowly tailored, though the Court generally evaluates it separately. |
Regulating speech that might lead to fewer rampage killings definitely serves a compelling government interest. National security always qualifies as a compelling government interest, and a rampage killing, while perhaps not definitively a national security matter, it is a domestic security concern and comes the closest to national security as it can without itself being a national security issue.
For our purposes, the more stringent requirement is the narrowly tailored/least restrictive means prong of the test. Now, of the suggestions provided, perhaps less than half could be adopted as a rule of law. Specifically:
Never publish a shooter's propaganda; Hide their names and faces; Minimize specifics and gory details; No photos or videos of the event.
These are hard-line prohibitions with clear boundaries. The press could still discuss the event, but it could not portray it in its most direct, brutal way. And prohibiting the four things above may work to decrease saturation and encourage the press to tell a different story.
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2) It might be possible to overtime build up enough of a taboo around it- such as exists for giving the name of underage people, however there is a huge demand for this information because of human curiosity, and the likelihood that all of the many many media sources available would all refrain from publishing the information is minimal.
3) Human curiosity- already mentioned above, but bears repeating. As soon as one site puts out the information the others will follow or lose market share. A few might not, and many would probably complain about the first source that broke the story, but if history is an indication this is the pattern that will follow. |
Right. I don't think a corporate media can refrain from anything profitable. It would have to be regulated. The demand problem is more tricky, but there's just no need to broadcast the shooter's name on every channel when people would be interested in even the more general news about the incident and occurrence.
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| 4) If no information is provided that will leave the killer a blank slate- which will allow partisan groups to project their fears, desires, etc. onto the killer to an even greater extent, giving even more freedom for the tragedy to be exploited by all comers. |
I am not arguing that no information would be provided. You can see that from my previous post, and from my discussion of the First Amendment, you can see that I concede that the First Amendment might limit prohibitions on publishing about the event, but it would permit some news of it to come out.
As for conspiracy theories (true or false), these arise even after well-publicized events, and claims are made that the government hides things which it denies exist. If you're afraid that removing the shooter's name from the title of this thread serves to advance the ideological agenda of the other side, I would say that's simply a weak argument, and that you're allowing the killer to achieve maximum notoriety for no compelling reason whatsoever. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 10:41 am Post subject: |
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You are the lawyer not me, so I might be off base, but I think that if that law was put on the books regulating things like you suggested, it would be tested very quickly, it would go to court, and I suspect has a good chance of losing. It would also be a very ugly case, I would guess.
The only realistic way to accomplish it would be to make it a taboo, but I don't think that is at all feasible in the open media environment available today, maybe it would have been possible when the news was most distributed by a few networks and newspapers, but not anymore. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| You are the lawyer not me, so I might be off base, but I think that if that law was put on the books regulating things like you suggested, it would be tested very quickly, it would go to court, and I suspect has a good chance of losing. It would also be a very ugly case, I would guess. |
You are right about all the above. Such a law would surely face a constitutional challenge, and you would have every right to believe the constitutional challenge would have better odds than not of success. The specifics of the law matter, and the Supreme Court does take notice of when the legislature attempts to draft a law that fits into its precedent. There are some very expansive First Amendment cases out there, by the way, which could permit all this and more. Also, the attorney arguing for the constitutionality of the law should mention that regulating media coverage of rampage killings (or killings in general) is the least restrictive means because it does not impact every citizen's right to self-defense in any way.
| Quote: |
| The only realistic way to accomplish it would be to make it a taboo, but I don't think that is at all feasible in the open media environment available today, maybe it would have been possible when the news was most distributed by a few networks and newspapers, but not anymore. |
Well, I am trying to make it taboo on this board. And I was told I was nagging. So you may be right about that. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 10:55 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| You are the lawyer not me, so I might be off base, but I think that if that law was put on the books regulating things like you suggested, it would be tested very quickly, it would go to court, and I suspect has a good chance of losing. It would also be a very ugly case, I would guess. |
You are right about all the above. Such a law would surely face a constitutional challenge, and you would have every right to believe the constitutional challenge would have better odds than not of success. The specifics of the law matter, and the Supreme Court does take notice of when the legislature attempts to draft a law that fits into its precedent. There are some very expansive First Amendment cases out there, by the way, which could permit all this and more. Also, the attorney arguing for the constitutionality of the law should mention that regulating media coverage of rampage killings (or killings in general) is the least restrictive means because it does not impact every citizen's right to self-defense in any way. |
If a blogger gets ahold of the information and puts it online, which is pretty likely, or people keep the videos the killer posts beforehand, then what? Fines, put in jail, take down their site? If a video is creepy and weird but legal before the person in it turns into a killer, it what becomes illegal instantly afterwards? Also, I would guess looking at fines that banks pay for working with cartels and Iran, even after a fine breaking this kind of law could still be profitable and the fine would get built into the business model. In short, I think that even if it did pass through the courts enforcing it would be about as effective as enforcing intellectual property rights online.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The only realistic way to accomplish it would be to make it a taboo, but I don't think that is at all feasible in the open media environment available today, maybe it would have been possible when the news was most distributed by a few networks and newspapers, but not anymore. |
Well, I am trying to make it taboo on this board. And I was told I was nagging. So you may be right about that. |
A noble try, but take a quick look at a lot of the posts on this board and realize that taboo just doesn't work here, I guess. I can't imagine having most of these conversations offline with a fascist like Titus (why should Kuros be the only one to have any fun). Tmz is a popular website, there are other more transgressive stuff out there that make this place look tame, if I thought it was possible I'd gladly delete the thread. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Leon wrote: |
| You are the lawyer not me, so I might be off base, but I think that if that law was put on the books regulating things like you suggested, it would be tested very quickly, it would go to court, and I suspect has a good chance of losing. It would also be a very ugly case, I would guess. |
You are right about all the above. Such a law would surely face a constitutional challenge, and you would have every right to believe the constitutional challenge would have better odds than not of success. The specifics of the law matter, and the Supreme Court does take notice of when the legislature attempts to draft a law that fits into its precedent. There are some very expansive First Amendment cases out there, by the way, which could permit all this and more. Also, the attorney arguing for the constitutionality of the law should mention that regulating media coverage of rampage killings (or killings in general) is the least restrictive means because it does not impact every citizen's right to self-defense in any way. |
If a blogger gets ahold of the information and puts it online, which is pretty likely, or people keep the videos the killer posts beforehand, then what? Fines, put in jail, take down their site? If a video is creepy and weird but legal before the person in it turns into a killer, it what becomes illegal instantly afterwards? Also, I would guess looking at fines that banks pay for working with cartels and Iran, even after a fine breaking this kind of law could still be profitable and the fine would get built into the business model. In short, I think that even if it did pass through the courts enforcing it would be about as effective as enforcing intellectual property rights online. |
It would be a lot better if a few errant bloggers got the name and people had to search for it than for the killer's name to be in every paper. Likewise with the photos, videos, and propaganda statements. The idea is to decrease notoriety, because the notoriety is an incentive for the rampage. Obviously, the punishment would be pecuniary and it would be a misdemeanor, sending someone to jail for violating such a statute would be madness.
Yes, they should take down the site if it contains videos or photos of the rampage. Not sure if just mentioning the killer's name is enough.
You know you can edit the original post and change the title that way, right? Its pretty simple. Just edit the first post to this thread and remove the killer's name. |
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