Another tragic mass shooting occurred in Maine in late October, and with it came a torrent of news coverage about the suspected murderer’s background and potential motives.

To the majority of Americans, the story unfolds much like a true crime podcast or murder documentary, but to the families of the 18 victims, this story is a horrifying reality. 

Mass shootings like the Maine tragedy will inevitably lead to renewed discussions on Capitol Hill about legislation to prevent future murders. But in the meantime, it is worthwhile to consider the effect of publishing specific details about mass shootings and what role the media can play in preventing future mass shootings. 

While it’s important to inform the public about such violence, research has shown that publishing  details like a mass shooter’s name and image can lend to their idolization by potential perpetrators through “media contagion.”

Evidence of this contagion was first presented in 2015 by researchers at Arizona State University and Western New Mexico University who analyzed mass shootings and discovered that secondary mass shootings often followed highly publicized murders. The study found that when depressed or suicidal people saw the attention and notoriety of mass murderers, they viewed the events as a sort of script they could follow for publicity and infamous immortality.

It’s disturbing  that publishing the names and images of mass shooters with the intent of informing the public about a tragedy could actually serve to elevate and immortalize the murderer, creating an unintentional spiral of future shootings. 

At the heart of this dispute is a question about the media’s power for both good and evil. It hinges on whether reporting specific details about mass shootings is more beneficial to the public at large, or could actually encourage more crime.

Some outlets have decided to completely refrain from publishing the names and images of mass shooters, like the Daily Wire did in its 2018 policy, which cited the media’s “unintentional glorification” of mass shooters. Other outlets, like the Huffington Post, continue publishing details when necessary, since it claims it is the act of a mass shooting that inspires future violence as opposed to the background coverage and notoriety of a specific criminal. The Post also argued that omitting detailed information about a mass shooter’s background, motives, and access to weapons would be a failure to inform the public and hinder their understanding of such violence. 

It’s difficult to say which method is best. The media shouldn’t take this principle to the extreme and fall into censorship and revisionist history through the intentional withholding of facts, but if there is a chance that publishing mass shooters’ names and images could spark future violence, the media should seriously consider what it can do to mitigate that risk.

Some specific facts about mass shootings should be published, like the background and suspected motive of the shooter. These details are helpful for policy discussions about hate crimes and the connection between mental health concerns and violence, as well as for legislation on keeping weapons out of potentially violent peoples’ hands. But other information that is irrelevant to those official conversations and does not directly help keep the general public safe and informed should not be published, lest it inspire other potential criminals to seek out similar notoriety through violence.

It’s unclear where this principle should stop, as it could easily extend to other crimes and types of violence. But perhaps for our true crime-obsessed culture, it might be healthy for the press to limit any unintentional glorification and subtle encouragement of crime. 

It is important for local police to share such details with communities during ongoing manhunts for the suspected perpetrator, like in the Maine incident, but other details are relatively useless to the majority of Americans. It seems like a small price to pay to potentially prevent future shootings. 

This question doesn’t end with mass shootings, and could impact the discussion on whether bodycam footage from shootings should be released, and whether the names and images of other criminals like serial rapists and killers should be published. The “media contagion” theory makes sense and is a short-term alternative to the contentious gun control debate, but psychologists should study it further so that the American media can perhaps come to a consensus on coverage policies for tragedies like mass shootings.