Modern Primate

A little over a year ago, when Anders Breivik committed mass murder in Norway, I was still working at a site where and the story dominated the front page. The only thing I could bring myself to post that day was the following video by Charlie Brooker. It’s resurfaced again on Reddit today.

“If you don’t want to propagate more mass murders, don’t start the story with sirens blaring. Don’t have photographs of the killer. Don’t make this 24-7 coverage. Do everything you can to not make the body-count the lead story, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero. DO localize the story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market. Because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.”