James Holmes, James Holmes, James Holmes.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 11:17am

Suddenly the big thing is "Don't mention his name"- his referring to James Holmes, the "Batman" killer. One of my local papers has taken a public stance to not use his name unless absolutely necessary and to print no pictures.

"Sadly, so much of the mass media and the social media seem to ignore that partial motive. Everywhere you turn, it seems, you see the suspect’s photo and you hear his name. Not just occasionally, but repeatedly. Rather than reducing the odds of another tragedy, that kind of saturation coverage may actually increase those odds.

This is our commitment to you and to our community: We will exercise all our care to avoid making a celebrity of the suspect. We will exercise all our care to avoid feeding into the delusions of anyone like him."

I think that is just about as crazy as wanting to get famous for gunning down a theater full of people. It's an exercise in pointlessness as well as a ridiculous escapade in anti-journalism. Newspapers are in the business of reporting the news- not engaging in little games to make themselves seem concerned and caring.

Does anyone agree with this idea?
Him and Voldemort

[Calvin]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 11:33am

No, you are completely correct. In fact...for the first time in, well, ever, Ann Coulter wrote a column that I partially agreed with saying:
1) How stupid is is to play this "don't say the killer's name because all he wants is publicity" game. He's off his rocker, and there's no indication that fame was his goal -- nor is there any evidence that putting his name in print is going to "increase the odds" of another shooting.
2) That news station need to get back to just reporting on the story and stop showing pictures of candles and teddy bears to grainy piano music
3) That equally stupid is the demand to "honor the victims" by splashing every detail of their personal life on TV, as some people might prefer to be honored by being left alone.

Then she went off on some nonsense diatribe against any form of gun control, so I stopped agreeing, and all was right with the world.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 11:43am

The right wing apparently thinks that guns don't kill people, reporting the killers name kills people.

[Kad]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 11:55am

I agree with you, Joe. If anything, making his name a taboo mythologizes him more than simply showing his name and photo.

We should be confronted with who he is and what made him, and reminded that he is a person.

America has a habit of turning its heroes and villains into mythical things.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 12:05pm

Why don't we just stop talking about him again until there is a trial or a verdict, and then just report that?

Why don't we just stop making threads like this?

Why don't I just stop commenti

[Calvin]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 12:12pm

If we stop talking about Chick Fil A, will they go away, too? It certainly would cut my Facebook feed in half!

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 12:13pm

Yes. Maybe you shouldn't have.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 12:14pm

I actually remarked this weekend "If someone find a picture of James Holmes eating Chikc-Fil-A, Facebook will implode."

[Addison D.]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 12:21pm

The NY Times has taken to calling him 'James Eagan Holmes'. I wonder if this is to distinguish him from what is probably a legion of other, less culpable James Holmeses, or if the greater specificity = formality, and is a gesture of 'respect' for the enormity of the crime.

As Mr. Sondheim has reminded us, we frequently refer to the perpetrators of great crimes with their full names--John Wilkes Booth, Charles Julius Guiteau, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc.

I can't pretend to know enough about psychotic or sociopathic behavior to have an opinion about the impact of media saturation with the name of someone like James Eagan Holmes, but I DO think that--barring evidence that using their names increases the appeal of mass murder to the imbalanced--the news media owes us the facts of the case and not pandering, pop-psychology.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 1:34pm

It's the celebrity they are attempting to curb. The thought is that other unhinged folks will imitate to become "famous". If it became a practice that we (let's say, "American society") didn't make these nuts a "name", then others might not follow suit. Might be something to that theory, might not. If it deters one nut, I'm for it.

[nmartin]

Posted: 7/30/12 at 1:40pm

Comparison billboard.


Idaho Billboard Updated On: 7/30/12 at 01:40 PM