Annapolis coverage elevates victims; de-emphasizes shooter

If media coverage of the Annapolis newspaper shooting is any indication, perhaps the “No Notoriety” principle is beginning to sink in.

“No Notoriety” is a movement started by the families of mass shooting victims that asks media to change the way perpetrators of mass shootings are covered. They recommend showing the shooter’s name and image only once, or at minimum, as few times as possible. This relegates murderers to the obscurity that they deserve, depriving them the “media spotlight and celebrity they so crave” while discouraging copycats, according to nonotoriety.com, which also recommends “elevating” the victims to show that “their lives are more important” than the shooter and his actions.

Source: nonotoriety.com

These goals align with the values of peace journalism, which seeks less sensational reporting about mass shootings and more thorough, compassionate coverage of victims.

Anecdotally, these “No Notoriety” principles were on display during at least one of the Sunday talk programs—CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Though the program was devoted almost entirely to Annapolis, the name and photo of the shooter were not used. Instead, extensive coverage was given to telling the victims’ stories. Host Brian Stelter and his producers should be especially proud of last Sunday’s program, which was equally enlightening and moving.

According to a small study, “Reliable Sources” wasn’t alone in de-emphasizing the shooter and elevating the victims. A Lexis-Nexis database “all news” search of 1,067 articles about Annapolis during the previous week showed just 200 hits using the shooter’s name. In contrast, each of the victims was mentioned in news reports more times than the shooter—Gerald Fischman (286); Rob Hiaasen (282); John McNamara (249); Rebecca Smith (299); and Wendi Winters (287). 

The flip-flopped Annapolis reporting that minimized the shooter and elevated the victims is encouraging, and a stark contrast to reporting during past mass shootings. Though writing about the Charleston shooting, Bethan McKirnan’s observations could apply to coverage of any mass shooting. She writes, “The media turns killers into anti-heroes by using dramatic timelines of events, voyeuristic mobile phone footage and endless reconstructions of the killer's past and motivations is just as relevant today in the wake of the murder of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. Repeatedly showing us a killer's face isn't news, it's just rubbernecking, and what's more this sort of coverage only serves to turn this murdering little (twit) into a sort of nihilistic pin up boy.” (The Independent, June 20, 2015)

Let’s hope we’ve see the last of the rubbernecking and voyeurism, and that it’s replaced with reporting that reflects the respectful principles outlined by “No Notoriety.”