Killers’ ID needed, but it doesn’t ‘glorify’ them

Some college professors and some readers of this newspaper would like the media to stop publishing the names and photos of suspects in mass killings.

They believe that doing so glorifies the killers in the minds of would-be copycats and inspires more killings. The critics point to research based on comments or notes from killers that indicate the killers knew the names of previous killers or that “so and so” killed more people than the killer before him.

I appreciate the sentiment, and I promise that we at The Dispatch take this very seriously, and we take care not to “glorify” the killers. In the past two tragedies, for example, we published only very small photos of the killers and did not use their names in big type.

It’s important to note that the minds of would-be copycats are not sane places. In other words, petitioning the media to stop using the names and images of mass killers diverts attention from the most significant problem here: Mass killers typically have a mental illness — one that often is known to people around them before the killing starts.

Headlines do not influence rational, mentally healthy people to pick up semi-automatic weapons and stacks of ammunition clips to mow down church- and concert-goers.

This country has a big problem with mental-health care. We don’t have enough of it. Ill people either don’t get help or wait months to see a doctor for a host of reasons — including that mental health care isn’t sexy, it has no celebrity champion, and funding for it is woeful.

There also are philosophical and logistical impediments to withholding names of suspects involved in mass killings.

First, it's human nature for any of us to immediately wonder: Who did such a horrible thing, and why? It's our job and responsibility to tell you what happened and who authorities believe did it.

In this digital age, if we don't tell you, someone else with a social-media account will fill the void. And he or she might get it wrong, meaning that innocent people could be incorrectly linked to a horrifying criminal act. The rumor mill is often very ugly, and it does not care about facts.

There also is value in sharing the name. We saw it in the case of the Las Vegas shooter. Wide access to his name and photo allowed people across the country who knew him to help authorities piece together information about him, his activities and his motives.

And yet, most mentally healthy people couldn't tell you the names of recent mass killers. I tested that theory last week and found that no one I polled could remember the names of the last two killers — or the names of most other mass killers.

One Dispatch reader expressed concern last week that the media focused on the perpetrator but not the victims.

"While the public seems bent on knowing every detail about the one who commits the act, those most grievously affected are faceless and anonymous," the reader said in an email. "The innocent victims and their loved ones will quickly be forgotten."

That's possible, but to suggest that the media overlooked the victims is inaccurate.

Media attention on the perpetrator is natural, given the haunting questions about motive and because authorities are hunting for a suspect and need help, or they have the person in custody or in the morgue and know more about him than anyone else involved.

But it often takes at least hours, if not days, for authorities to properly identify victims and notify family, which they typically are required to do before releasing that information to the public and the media. It took three days in Texas.

When, God forbid, such a thing happens here in central Ohio, we do everything we can to tell the stories of those who die or are injured. Our colleagues across the country and around the globe do the same, and we publish those stories delivered to us by The Associated Press or another wire service. We have published several stories about those who died in Las Vegas, and a couple so far about those who died in Texas.

We also often seek to cover the funerals of victims — not out of morbid curiosity, as some have suggested, but because funerals are celebrations of those lives. They are celebrations we want to share so that we can do exactly as the reader suggested in the email last week: Tell the stories of those who died, those left behind and the profound sense of loss in the wake of these deaths.

After the Las Vegas massacre, we published short biographies of each victim for whom we could obtain a story. We did the same on Thursday for those killed in Texas last week. My wish is that we'll never have to do it again.

For that to happen, this country will need to focus on fixing its mental-health-care system.