Kudos for Charles C.W. Cooke’s August article about media coverage of mass shootings (“How Mass Media Coverage Inspires More Mass Shooters,” p. 30). We saw this very clearly in the Denver area after the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999. Every tv news story about the killings featured large photos of the two killers. These prominent pictures and their names were the lead of the story and one of the main features. The victims’ pictures were much smaller, with smaller type and little recognition of them. The media made the killers extremely famous. Little wonder that there have been many other copycat mass shootings in the Denver area since this tragic event. This disgusting and inappropriate coverage was my motivation for joining the nra, even though the only gun I’ve ever owned is a bb gun. I knew that the nra was the only organization that would fight back against this type of “news.”
Dick Kryka, via email
Your article about the way the media cover mass shootings is right on the money. If they didn’t cover it ad nauseam, there would be no incentive for deranged people to do this. One point that I disagree with is the belief that if the “journalists” realized they were contributing to the problem they would be horrified. The way the media have become so overtly anti-anything conservative, they would deny any culpability in this. It used to be that reporters reported the news facts in a more unbiased-appearing way. Now they want to be the news. As long as they continue their anti-conservative bias and give mass shooters the fame they seek, nothing is going to change.
Willard Brush, Lakeland, Fla.
