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What responsibility for the murders, therefore, and for more murders to come, lies with NBC, to whom the killer sent written and videotaped public statements about his rampage which NBC obligingly broadcast? “It was a tough call” for NBC, according to Bob Schieffer of CBS in a radio interview I chanced to listen to. Really? Funny, then, isn’t it, that it always gets called the same way—that is, for making such demented ramblings public instead of consigning them, unopened, unviewed, and unread, to the incinerator. We have to try to understand why these things happen, the media cry. No, we don’t! In fact, it’s the trying to understand that makes them happen. By telling a potential killer that he’s eligible for understanding, you confirm him in the belief that there are reasons for him to kill and therefore, to that extent, that it is all right to kill. The therapeutic approach, which the media find it convenient to adopt in these cases, essentially concedes the killer’s case that he is a martyr to whatever wrongs, imaginary or real, he sees himself as avenging. And, of course, his efforts at self-glorification depend on the media and their ability both to elicit such a response to his actions and, by doing so, to make him famous.

The importance of prospective fame as a motivator for those whose grievances against the world so often include their own obscurity and loneliness can hardly be overstated.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate