"Mass murders and attempted mass murders are best understood as angry suicide attempts," Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and Founder & President of Threat Assessment Group, in Newport Beach, California, said. "They are often successful, and 50 percent are dead by the end of the day, either at their own hands or at hands of police in 'suicide by cop.'"
There needs to be a balance between responsibly reporting a story of a mass shooting, and unnecessarily keeping it in front of a suicidal individual for days.
As long as there is 24-hour television that can broadcast live breaking news stories coast-to-coast within minutes, and television journalists that don't take into account who may be watching, or are determined to keep a story of a mass shooting on the air for days, then mass shootings may never end.
Jack Lindauer has written for the Los Angeles Daily Journal newspaper. He is a Los Angeles based filmmaker.
(Article changed on Mar 27, 2021 at 4:48 PM EDT)
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