So we’ve tried to stop the stress that can lead to a shooting.  But what if we fail at that effort.  What if—imagine that—someone is stressed.  So stressed they feel the need to do something about it.  Why do they choose violence?  Why—yes, why do they want to become a mass shooter?  Where do they even get that idea?

The answer—of course—is the media.  There’s tons of media coverage for every mass shooting.  And that media coverage—sure—it focuses on the tragedy.  But it also focuses on the killer.  We have names—names are a big one.  Splashed everywhere—repeated over and over again on television, like some ancient totem.  Then we have images—grainy shots and Facebook photos from some friend’s feed.  Or, if the perpetrator is still alive, the mugshot.  Everyone loves a mugshot.  And finally—the story.  We get the story of the killer; first from neighbors and acquaintances—the family next door, “we never would have known,” they say.  And finally, the arc of the killer’s story—where they started and how it all ended.  Always, there’s the search for how this could happen. Always, there’s the question: when did their lives take this turn towards unspeakable violence.  Oh—and increasingly, we get from the media the words and posts and messages, the manifestos, of the killers themselves.  Unmediated.  Something created with the express intention to glorify.

All of this material, it could fill a book—each killer a fascinating character.  And fascination is the only word for it—the media is absolutely fascinated by the story.  But it’s no special kind of fascination.  The media today is no different from media of the past.  In 1924, the entire country was drawn to the fascinating story of the murder by Leopold and Loeb, two rich, do-nothing young prats who decided to kill for the thrill of killing.  Just to see if they could get away with it.  Spoiler alert: they didn’t.  The story of Leopold and Loeb inspired—and continues to inspire—media coverage. Alfred Hitchcock even made a movie out of it—Rope—that starts with the killers and ends with the killers.

That’s a lot of story and a lot of glory for those who seek it.  And make no mistake—mass shooters do seek it.  According to an analysis by researchers in the International Handbook of Threat Assessment, most active shooters expressed an interest in being famous.  Infamous, I should say.  Remember, these are individuals who think very highly of themselves, but often feel victimized by the world—men whose manliness has been trampled or in their minds offended; who seek vindication, and validation.  The Columbine shooters talked about Hollywood directors fighting over the rights to their story.  This is nothing new.  A study of historical assassins found that a thirst for fame and notoriety was literally the second most common motive:

“I’ll see you on National TV.” 

— Shooter in Tucson, AZ attack

The disturbing thing about this is that the media so often fulfills these dreams.  By doing so, they not only play directly into the hands of these killers, granting their wish—they also produce material that can inspire the next mass shooting.

And inspire it does.  By digging so deep into the stories, the media dredge up themes and struggles that are universal.  Identifiable.  Human.  Themes like disenchantment.  Frustration.  Rage against the world.  Themes every teenager lives daily—feels in their bones.  Yes, by so thoroughly interrogating the stories of the killers, the media unwittingly hits on the ordinary, the everyday—turning a killer into an everyman.  At least for some young men—the story clicks.  At first it might be simple identification, but soon it becomes admiration.  At the temerity, the ingenuity and drive of the killer.  Here’s someone who stood up from the hopelessness of their situation and took a stand against the world.  And now look—watch the world tremble at the mention of their name!  Yes, in telling the story of the villain the media creates, in the minds of the next killer, a hero.  And that feeling in the aggrieved man consuming all of this news coverage—that feeling finally becomes inspiration.    

Some of the mass shooters were so inspired that they actually made pilgrimages to the sites of prior shootings.  They weren’t just looking for best practices, they were seeking to connect in some way to their heroes.  In a study of mass killers and assassins, the researchers Fein and Vossekull determined that nearly 40% of them had emulated previous killers directly, mentioning them in their own writings or possessions.  This inspiration of media coverage—it actually has a name.  Researchers call it the media contagion effect—and they’ve measured its power in the same way they measure the distribution of an infectious disease outbreak.  For every three shootings that take place, on average one will be copied within 13 days somewhere around the country.  In a recent paper, researchers suggested that if we could stop this media contagion effect, we could return to the level of mass shootings that existed before 1970—a rate, they say “where it becomes a truly aberrant event.”  (Johnston and Joy, Western New Mexico U.)

Unfortunately, the opposite seems to be happening.  In my own analysis of the data, I noticed something kind of disturbing.  Looking at 15 years of the FBI’s records on active shooters—I tried to understand why these shootings were rising.  Is it rising among young people or old people? Is it rising among handgun shooters or rifle shooters? Is it rising among shooters in one area of the country or another? None of those characteristics seem to matter.  But here’s one that does: among shooters who targeted friends and family there was not much of a rise at all.  No change for the last 15 years.  But the shooters who target strangers are on the rise—and fast.  So the rise in mass shootings over the years can be tracked to this increase in shooters who are targeting strangers.  Shooters who have a public grievance—not a private one.

But, why would a shooter target strangers?  What’s to gain from it, except the satisfaction of having lashed out?  The answer, I think, is attention.  Media attention.  But if that’s the case—if it’s true that so many killers are killing because they heard about killers, if it’s true they are doing it having been inspired to seek their own glory and aggrandizement…well, what do we do about it?

I mean, it’s chilling, isn’t it?  To think that just talking about something could make it worse?  It kind of goes against everything we believe about the importance of a free and open dialogue.  The value of a free press.  This, though—it isn’t a problem.  It’s a huge opportunity to change things for the better.  If a third of shooters chose to kill because the sky was blue—well, you can’t do anything about that.  But if a third of them do it because they’re modeling themselves on the stories of other killers, if half of them are looking for fame and glory in the media.  Well, we—collectively—we are the media.  And we can change that.

In fact, the work is already underway.  The FBI has joined with researchers at Texas State University and the families of victims to try to change how the media covers mass shootings.  They call it: The “Don’t Name Them” campaign.  And it asks media to not release names or likenesses after a shooter has been either captured or killed.  The campaign is reasonable enough; if you don’t share the killer’s name, you’re not advancing their reputation.  But—but, the problem is that the “Don’t Name Them” campaign doesn’t work.

Nobody is changing their coverage.  Reporters and editors are still convinced that there’s a public interest served in knowing deep, detailed stories about perpetrators. Even when the media reports on the media contagion effect and the campaign to stop naming shooters, they get it wrong.  Like an article in the Chicago Tribune headlined “Can the Media Reduce Massacres” that was rife with names of killers.  The Washington Post did the same thing in a report from 2015 called “Are mass shootings contagious? Some scientists who study how viruses spread say yes…”  And yet, the story was packed with viral photos of mass killers and weaponry; the same vectors that spread the contagion!  New York Times—same thing—using mass shooters’ names when reporting on the media contagion effect.  What the hell, media?  Don’t you get it?

It’s crazy-making; but we’re also being a bit crazy to expect anything different.  Because it’s human nature to want to report on these things.  And when the entire country is scrambling for information—a name, a face, an answer why—well, the media’s going to answer, right?  Going to fulfill that job to be done.  With the name and face and story of the killer.  So, what’s the solution?

Three strategies: redirect, re-index, and revise.

Step 1: Redirect

First, we redirect reporter attention to other stories that are more constructive.  Like those of the victims or everyday heroes.  Or—imagine this—stories about the actual real-life causes and potential solutions to mass shootings.  We build a list of experts ready to talk not about cause, but prevention—call it the “prevention action team.”  After each shooting, the team leaps into action—contacting every single reporter likely to be assigned to the story.  Ready to steer the conversation towards insight, and away from obsession.

Step 2: Re-Index

Technology can help, here—and here’s the technology angle.  We engage Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to black out any mention of a shooter’s name and likeness.  It shouldn’t be hard: a name is text and text is searchable.  Find the name in a post and block it.  But blocking might be too extreme.  How about this: you’re about to put up a post mentioning the a shooter by name.  The moment you tap: “post” a message pops up: “Your post violates our terms of use by promoting or propagating the name of a suspected or confirmed mass-murderer.  Tap here to automatically replace the name with a placeholder: ‘shooter’ or ‘perpetrator’ or ‘suspect.’”  What about images?  Well, facial-recognition algorithms are getting better and better by the day—so an algorithmic approach could be used to do the same for images and video.

We can also work beyond social media—engaging search engines like Google, Bing and Duck Duck Go.  Ask them to do the same for web results—favoring results that report more responsibly and penalizing those that spread a shooter’s name and likeness.  This can even work backwards—smothering the fame of past shooters.  Just imagine if you entered the name of a known shooter into Google and received absolutely zero results.  If you did an image search and not a single face appeared.  If we can get a company that the media relies on onboard—like Getty Images, we could even remove shooter photos from their libraries for use in future stories.

Just think of the power of this policy.  If the tech industry throttles stories that mention a killer’s name, media companies will take note.  And they might just adopt a blanket policy of doing just the same: replacing the glory of printing a name with the anonymity of a word like ‘suspect,’ or ‘shooter’ or ‘perpetrator.’  It’s hard to be infamous when you’re anonymous.

Step 3: Revise

All of this, though—it still feels a bit like we’re blocking our first inclinations.  And our natural response as humans is to talk about other humans.  And to talk about them by name.  Not “perpetrator or “suspect.”  “Victim” or “heroine.”  But Jill or Jack, Omar or Siobhan.  We are wordsmiths—giving to everyone and everything we see a label or a name.  Why should we treat those that terrorize us any differently?  We should give them a name—but a different one.  Imagine this: each time there is a mass shooting, a university laboratory lights up, computers whirl, and a name is automatically generated, alongside a digital model of a perfectly anonymous, computer-generated face and figure.  One that vaguely resembles the suspect—similar age, similar hair color, similar build—but an unmistakably different face.  This digital stand-in is essentially “cast” as our shooter and distributed through the FBI, law enforcement, and other means directly to the media.  Here is a name, here is a likeness you can use.  This is better than blurring out a figure—because it fulfills a basic human need to stare evil in the face.  And to say its name.   This might seem like a strange tactic—but it’s really no different from naming hurricanes and snowstorms—something the media does all the time.

Maybe it’s a university that does this work.  Maybe a non-profit.  Maybe the Associated Press or Reuters—some sort of news agency.  A technology company or advocacy group.  But the impact could be great.  To remove every possible whisper of fame from the perpetration of violent acts—to smother the flame of inspiration by changing the stories that are written, reshaping the conversations that are spoken, and recasting every tragedy before the first act even begins.  Let’s cut mass shootings by a third before they even begin.  And let’s start today.