Should media hide names of mass shooters?

This resource is a wikidebate, a collaborative effort to gather and organize all arguments on a given issue. It is a tool of argument analysis or pro-and-con analysis. This is not a place to defend your preferred points of view, but original arguments are allowed and welcome. See the Wikidebate guidelines for more.

Some argue that publishing names of mass shooters contributes to motivation of other people to become mass shooters themselves to become famous and that this publishing is undesirable. Are they right?

Media should hide names of mass shooters

Pro

• Pro Publishing shooter names contributes to motivation of the shooters and their possible followers/imitators later. People often act with the motivation to make their names famous or notable, even if notable for a negative action.
• Pro Expanding on the above, Meindl and Ivy 2017 show media contribute to mass shooting immitation.
•  Comment Media could hide the names temporarily if one believes that an imitation is most likely in the near future after the event.
  •  Comment That assumes that the imitation has anything to do with the name rather than the event.
  •  Comment Expanding on the above, the imitator cannot imitate the name; what they imitate are other event characteristics.
  •  Comment If the shooter seeked fame, they will have it anyway, even with their full name once enough time elapses.

Con

• Con It is unclear what distinguishes mass shooters from other mass murderers or serial killers, e.g. dictators, whose names no one seriously proposes to be hidden. Rather, one of the most famous dictator's surname is a synonym for pure evil.
  • Objection Most people are not in the position to imitate dictators, but many are in the position to imitate mass shooters. This bring out one salient difference.
    • Objection Point taken. However, it remains to clarify what differentiates mass shooters from mass murderers e.g. in healthcare, e.g. a killer nurse.
      • Objection A mass shooter typically reckons with becoming famous, whereas a mass or serial killer in healthcare typically tries to hide the crimes. Therefore, a serial killer in healthcare seems unlikely to be motivated by fame.
• Con Unless media censor the mass shooting itself, the shooter becomes famous or notable anyway, albeit not under their full name but rather under, e.g. the mass shooter in city so-and-so in year so-and-so. One would have to show that it is specifically the notoriety of the name that the shooters are interested in rather than a sense of having become important.

Further reading

• Should media avoid naming the gunmen in mass shootings?, apnews.com
• CMV: The names of mass shooters should not be released to the public, reddit.com
• FBI to media: Don't name mass shooters, 2014, ksat.com
• “Don’t name them” – Criminologist asks journalists to help stop mass shootings, journalistsresource.org
• Naming The Gunman Glorifies His Crimes, Not Naming Him Could Undermine The Truth, 25 Mar 2021, npr.org
• Texas Authorities: We Won't Mention Shooter's Name Again, npr.org
• Should the media have a moral obligation to not broadcast the name of mass shooters?, quora.com
• Christchurch shootings: Ardern vows never to say gunman's name, 19 Mar 2019, bbc.com
• Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders by Adam Lankford, Eric Madfis, 2018