Saturday, December 08, 2007

The Media and Mass Murder - Did the press play a role in Robert Hawkins's killing spree?


































While I can understand the desire to commit suicide even as misplaced as it may be (been there myself), I will never understand randomly killing others that one does not even know before finally killing one's self. Even in my darkest moments, I NEVER remotely thought of taking others with me. This Newsweek story (http://www.newsweek.com/id/74163) looks at the latest mass killing spree and, I believe rightly, looks at the role the media plays in causing other disturbed individuals to try to emulate other mass killers through all the attention and coverage they receive. The reality is that these individuals, of which Robert Hawkins is but the latest, are very disturb, often are angry at the world and seek a combination of revenge and fame. The media gives them precisely what they seek. (Suzanne Smalley's questions are in bold letters)Here are some story highlights:

The suicide note Robert Hawkins left behind—"Now I'll be famous," he reportedly wrote—is chilling, but not as chilling as survivors' accounts of what he did to secure his place in the headlines. Hawkins shot himself in the back of the head in an Omaha shopping mall Wednesday after gunning down eight strangers with an AK-47 assault rifle. The 19-year-old had recently been dumped by his girlfriend and fired from his job at McDonald's, though friends say he had been troubled for some time.
The massacre in the middle of a mall at the height of the Christmas shopping rush catapulted the story onto front pages across the country and into constant cable TV rotation. Some experts say that's just what he would have wanted. Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University, has spent his life studying spree killers like Hawkins. Levin spoke with NEWSWEEK's Suzanne Smalley about what motivates these killers—and why the media too may have blood on its hands.
He also allegedly said, "Now I'll be famous." What are you thoughts on that? Well, I hate to say it, but it shouldn't surprise us that the killer sought fame. Sadly, we give these mass killers exactly what they want. We put them on the cover of celebrity magazines. I'm not talking about NEWSWEEK. I'm talking about celebrity magazines where we used to place entertainers, sports figures—and now we put killers. It's not just that they're newsworthy. It's that they become antiheroes, celebrities because of the crimes that they commit. We send the wrong message to our youngsters, and it's very simple: "You want to be famous, you want to get a lot of publicity, you want to feel important and powerful and dominant and in control of things? Fine, kill somebody, and while you're at it kill a lot of people, because then you'll definitely make the 11 o'clock news and you'll be on every cable news program in existence."

Hypothetically, if there were to be a media blackout on publishing these killers' pictures and their writings, or videotapes of them, do you think there would be fewer of these types of killings? It would definitely help. After the Virginia Tech massacre, NBC released the photographs [of killer Seung-Hui Cho]. Because I think we gave the killer what he was after. This feeling of importance that he never had before. Instead of being humiliated on a daily basis since the eighth grade, he finally got what he wanted. He wanted to be a big shot.

And then, a couple of months later, Robert Hawkins is saying, "Now I'll be famous." Why would it surprise us? And what has happened is this: if one person is killed in a local community the story is important and it is a tragedy, but it is also a local story. It doesn't get national press. But when 32 people are killed by a mass murderer, when eight people are killed in a shopping mall, it becomes a national story and it's covered widely. He can be a big shot for the first time, using what happened a thousand miles away or maybe 3,000 miles away as a role model for his own behavior.

The photos above are of Hawkins' victims who (as well as their families) we all need to keep in our thoughts and prayers. I have intentionally not posted a photo of Hawkins. Too many people have already seen his face. His victims, as opposed to him, need to not be forgotten.

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