Stop making mass shooters famous Tom Teves
Every parent’s worst nightmare:
July 20, 2012,
my phone rings at 4:30 in the morning.
It’s my son Alex’s girlfriend, Amanda,
saying hysterically,
“Tom, Tom, there’s been a shooting,
and they dragged me out of the theater.
They wouldn’t let me stay.
I wanted to [stay],
but they dragged me out.”
I say to Amanda,
“Amanda, are you OK? Have you been hurt?”
And she said no, that she was fine,
that Alex had saved her life.
I then say,
“Amanda, where’s Alex?”
And she says, sobbing,
“I don’t know, we can’t find him.
They dragged me out of the theater.
They made me leave.
He was shot.
I tried to wake him up,
but I couldn’t wake him up.
He wouldn’t get up.
They dragged me away.
I didn’t want to leave him.”
And I say to Amanda,
“The last time you saw Alex,
was he bleeding?
Did you have any of his blood on you?”
And she cries, “Yeah, a lot,”
and breaks down.
Alex loved Amanda.
And he was one of the most
honorable men on earth,
and at the age of 24,
he had to make the decision
to risk his life
in order to ensure she would live.
I knew in my heart if he couldn’t get up,
he was dead.
I had just arrived
the night before
with my wife Caren
and my youngest son
for a week’s vacation in Hawaii.
We were literally
3,300 miles away.
Caren and I frantically started
calling his cell phone,
to no avail.
We left multiple messages.
We then turned to the media.
But all we could find
was information on the murderer
and his booby-trapped apartment.
We tried calling
the Aurora police station,
but it was impossible to get an answer.
But in hindsight, it was understandable.
They were dealing with
12 dead, 70 injured,
the carnage so bad,
the police had to bring
some of the victims to the hospitals
in the backs of their police cars,
because they had run out of ambulances.
It was a horrific and chaotic scene.
We would never see Alex again,
his injuries so severe
I had to shield even his mom
from looking upon him,
for fear that would be
the lasting image of him in her mind.
But you know who we would see
again and again?
The murderer.
His pictures were everywhere.
One article was six paragraphs long
and featured his name 41 times.
The media had made him famous.
But my firstborn son, Alex,
a hero,
was absent from those initial reports.
Caren and I immediately realized
that there was something wrong
with the way the media responds
to these random mass shootings
since Columbine.
We started doing research,
and we realized
that if we could change
the way the media reports,
we could reduce the amount of shootings
and save lives.
(Applause)
Let me explain.
Almost every single random mass shooter
has something in common.
Can anybody guess what that is?
They want notoriety.
They want to be famous.
In fact,
these murderers
are telling us this themselves.
The Sandy Hook murderer
kept a spreadsheet
of previous mass murderers
and their number of kills.
The Orlando Pulse nightclub murderer
called a local news station –
during his attack! –
and then stopped to check Facebook
to see if he’d gone viral.
The Parkland murderer
recorded and posted
a video
stating,
“When you see me on the news,
you’ll know who I am.”
The Aurora theater murderer
told his psychiatrist
that he recognized he couldn’t
make an impact on the world in science,
but he could become famous
by blowing people up.
And most telling,
the Umpqua Community College murderer
wrote on his blog
about a previous mass murderer,
saying,
“I’ve noticed that people like him
are all alone and unknown,
but when they spill a little blood,
the whole world knows who they are.”
A man who was known by no one
is now known by everyone,
his face splashed across every screen,
his name on the lips
of everyone on the planet,
all in one day.
It seems like the more people you kill,
the more you’re in the limelight.
These are just a few examples.
I could go on and on.
These murderers are telling us
they want to be famous
like the murderers before them,
and the media continues to give them
exactly what they seek:
notoriety.
The gun debate is very emotional,
and our mental health issues
are very complicated.
Both will take time to correct.
But to reduce the carnage,
we don’t need an act of Congress.
What we need is an act of conscience
on the producers
and consumers of mass media
to remove the reward of notoriety.
(Applause)
So to save lives,
Caren and I launched “No Notoriety,”
dedicated to challenging the media
to protect our communities
by adhering to these
research-backed principles.
One: report all the facts
on the mindset,
demographics
and motivational profile
of these shooters,
but minimize their names and images,
unless they’re at large.
Two: limit the use of the shooter’s name
to once per piece,
never in the headlines
and no pictures in prominent locations.
And three –
Three.
(Laughter)
I’m not good with numbers.
(Laughter)
Refuse to publish
any self-serving material
provided by the shooters.
(Applause)
To be clear:
this is not an infringement
on anyone’s First Amendment rights.
This is not censorship.
We are merely asking the media
to leverage guidelines
they already have in place.
For example,
the media does not report
on journalists that have been kidnapped
in order to protect them.
The media does not report
the names and images
of victims of sexual assault or suicide.
These responsible journalistic practices
protect public safety
with zero impact
on the public’s right to know.
Academic studies show
that the average news consumer
wants to hear less about the shooters.
Instead,
the media should elevate
the names and images
of the victims,
both murdered and injured,
the heroes
and the first responders.
They should –
(Applause)
They should promote data and analysis
from experts on the fields
of mental health and public safety.
All the experts agree.
The FBI,
the International Police Association,
the Major City Chiefs Association
and A.L.E.R.T.,
the law enforcement organization
dedicated to training first responders
to stop active shooters,
all endorse the principles
of No Notoriety.
In fact, in 2014,
the FBI started the “Don’t Name Them”
campaign in support of the idea.
The American Psychiatric Association
supports reducing and minimizing
the identification of these shooters.
The idea has gone worldwide,
with the Prime Minister of New Zealand
calling for no notoriety
after the Christchurch shootings.
But as much as we want
the media to change,
they are for-profit organizations.
They won’t change unless
we hold them accountable.
(Applause)
The media makes their money
from advertising
based on the number of viewers and clicks.
If we can reduce the number
of viewers and clicks on any subject,
the media will change
the way they report on it.
So the next time you see
any media organization –
print, digital, radio or television –
gratuitously leveraging the names
and images of these shooters,
stop watching,
stop listening,
stop clicking,
stop liking
and stop sharing.
Write to the producers,
editors, station managers and CEOs
of these news organizations.
Take note of the advertisers
who support those segments
and write to their CEOs.
Because together,
we can push the media
to act in the interest
of public safety,
not profits.
It’s too late for Alex,
and it’s too late for my family.
But please don’t join
our club by inaction,
the club nobody wants to join.
The due’s too high.
Because it’s not too late
for people who aren’t victims yet.
We have the power
to reduce random mass shootings.
Let’s use it.
Thank you.
(Applause)