[village-idiot]

The cruelty is in causing these scenarios, not documenting them. If anything, sweeping them under the rug by not photographing them makes the situation so much worse, as unseen horrors are much easier to ignore.

Most newspapers have strict rules around reporting suicide specifically to reduce copycats, not out of respect for the dead.

[incidentals]

Which, of course, exposes a reality that most media outlets are inadquately contrite about: Most active shooter incidents are indeed suicide attempts, and indeed copycat crimes, which continue to perpetuate specifically due to the attention they are permitted to seize.

Were it not for the horrendous coverage they get, we likely would not have seen nearly as many. So what’s really going on?

This media industry absolutely knows the ramifications of such publicity, and has known what it would feed into from the beginning. They can control themselves. They do it every day. They reduce some catastrophes to a blip or nothing, and amplify others.

Why are active shooter incidents granted such coverage, by a large, tightly controlled apparatus?

[village-idiot]

I think you’ve hit on a failure point of the media: views more matter now than serving the public.