Editorial: Journalists, here's what you could do after Roanoke

In the last 24 hours I’ve seen journalists all over the country grappling with the senseless murder of two TV journalists working in Roanoke, VA. Many of us see ourselves in them: young, energetic, aspiring. Taking on the crummy hours because it’s worth it to get your start on your career, knowing you won’t win any awards for your routine assignments.

Because this one hits so close to home, many journalists have posted their reflections on social media and blogs, some changing their profile photos to color bars in solidarity with the WDBJ staff. Many have included frustration about how things need to change: gun control, mental health treatment, etc. But we’re not talking about the one thing we journalists have the ability to change today: if we want to.

Enabling a fantasy

The information that we know about the shooter in Roanoke has been widely circulated: we know he used to work with two victims. The murder took place on live television, and the shooter also wore a body camera to film himself committing the act, later posting the video to his social media accounts. He was likely the personwho sent a fax to ABCnews rationalizing his actions by painting himself as a victim of sexual and racial discrimination.

In that 23-page fax, he also referenced previous mass murderers by name, calling the shooter at Virginia Tech “his boy,” and reveling at that shooter’s body count compared to the shooters at Columbine High School. In his warped mind, these shooters were rock stars. And he was prepared to join their class. He also cited the shooter in the Charleston, SC church killings, saying “You want a race war (expletive)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE (expletive)!!!"

He had reportedly been contacting ABC news for a few weeks telling them he had a story for them. He didn’t get their attention.

I believe if the Roanoke shooter could see what is happening today, he would be happy. We all know his name. We all heard what he had to say. He knew we’d report it, and knew people would watch. And by making us watch his crime, we witnessed his power and control. His actions imply that’s what he wanted.

Walter’s guidance

Credit Ryan Famuliner / KBIA

/

KBIA

The walk to my office each morning at the Missouri School of Journalism takes me past a bronze plaque of The Journalist’s Creed by Walter Williams. Like many others, it is my professional gospel. It’s littered with phrases like “trustees for the public,” “give every man a fair chance,” and “a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.” But this morning, I took notice of a line I usually skim right through:

I doubt he foresaw a world where senseless mass killings have become commonplace, but I believe Walter Williams wrote that line for situations like the one that we live in today. The word “indefensible” is so strong: suppression of the news should not happen. But, Williams also gives us an exception. He didn't have to, but he did.

Why do we report the name and publish or broadcast the photos of a mass murderer? What value do those two components add to the story? I contend that the value of those two small pieces of information is very low, and does not outweigh the consideration of “the welfare of society.”

Let the villain disappear

The reality is we “suppress the news” every day as journalists. Based on a number of factors we decide to include some facts, and leave others out. Usually we do so because of relevance to the story, or because of the time or inches we are allowed by our editors. It’s a matter of practicality. Sometimes, we also make the decision based on ethical considerations. Rarely does the public’s safety come into play in this equation.

But when covering mass shootings, I believe the public's safety has to become our concern as journalists. The Roanoke shooter is not the first that left behind evidence of a close knowledge or admiration for previous mass killings. He won’t be the last that clearly has attention as one of their motivations for their crimes. When we repeatedly report the name and show the face of killers like these, we are solidifying their induction into a fraternity of infamy. And we do not need to remain complacent in this equation.

What if we didn’t report the name of the killer? What if we let the villain remain faceless? What does our audience lose?

To be clear, I am not proposing journalists stop covering mass shootings. These stories are of extreme importance. I am also not proposing journalists go as far as avoiding reporting about the killer. What I am proposing is simply omitting those two pieces of information: name, and face, from the reporting of these tragedies. I contend that the rest of the story could be reported as it is now without disruption. Try it out: go re-read the articles you’ve read about the Roanoke killing, and every time you see the shooter’s name, replace it with the phrase “a 41-year old former employee of WDBJ” or “the shooter.”

This is not unprecedented. Most journalism outlets regularly withhold the name of an alleged victim of sexual assault. In that situation, it is to protect the victim. It may seem strange to cite this when proposing that we withhold the information of the suspect. But we would not be doing this to protect the suspect. We would be doing this to protect future victims whose lives may be used as currency by a villain to buy their way onto our airwaves, into print, and into our psyches.

How it might work

This idea may seem impossible to execute. Maybe because it seems it’s too late to unwind the editorial approaches. Maybe because the current state of media and prevalence of social media make it impossible to wipe the name and face off the earth. Maybe that’s right. But is it a reason not to try?

There are many ways this could be attempted. Editorial teams at national outlets could decide today to change their policies about how to handle these facts in stories like these. Many of these changes would trickle down through affiliates or ownership groups. That wouldn’t reach every outlet, but could establish a professional standard.

Organizations like the Society for Professional Journalists or the Radio Television Digital News Association could add guidance for these situations into their codes of ethics.

Another practical concern here would be determining what stories would prompt this standard. We can’t stop reporting the name of every murderer, right? Right. Editors in each newsroom would have to make judgment calls, considering the amount of people killed, whether the killer is at large, the perceived motivation for the crime and the killer’s attempts at gaining attention to decide if and when a story deserves an omission of identity. While this seems a little daunting, editors often make similar decisions with limited information when deciding whether or not to cover a suicide, for example. It's not a unprecedented exercise.

There's another (crazier) way to try to solve that problem. A committee could be established, with editorial-level representatives from major news outlets across medium, to determine which stories this should apply to. A Tragedy Guidance Committee. As soon as possible during a story like this, the committee could consider the amount of people killed, whether the killer is at large, the perceived motivation for the crime and the killer’s attempts at gaining attention to decide if and when a story deserves an omission of identity. 

I'm getting off on a tangent here, but if established, this committee could also make a decision about how to handle the “manifesto.” In many recent mass killings, the murderer will send a specific news outlet a long document detailing their rationale for their crime, and opining on their world view. It puts organizations in a strange spot. You may have been basically picked at random, but you now have exclusive information on the most important story of the day. How do you handle it? Can you pass over those clicks and eyeballs for the sake of the public good? I believe ABC news has handled the Roanoke shooting “manifesto” well, turning the document over to police and reporting small portions of the document that provide some insight into the killings. On the opposite end, I believe NBC news’ decision to broadcast photos of the Virginia Tech shooter brandishing guns was a damaging and short-sighted editorial decision.

The organizations in the committee could agree that any such information would be shared amongst all the entities. This would take away any motivation for the exclusive, and let the decisions about what is use or not used be more level headed. They could even dictate what is distributed for reporting if the committee saw fit, in the same way a pool reporter makes those decisions when access to a story is limited.

Or maybe it's much smaller than all that. Maybe it's just an individual reporter making a decision not to use a name or face of a shooter when it's not material to the story. But changing a reporter's mind on this is very difficult, because it's completely counterintuitive to our nature as journalists to withhold information.

I've written about this before, but I'm not the first or last person to see withholding the name and face of a killer from reporting as a logical adjustment. The No Notoriety Campaign is one prominent example. Some individual outlets have made the move, including 9News in Denver.

It’s not impossible. There are surely other ways this approach could be widely implemented, too. It might not be easy. It might not even prevent any future killings – there are so many other factors that cause them. But it’s something we could do to try to take a least a piece of that killer’s motivation away.

I leave you with Walter:

Ryan Famuliner is the News Director of KBIA-FM and an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism