Media and Mayhem: When a CEO is shot
A collection of headlines regarding the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Tamara Cherry
Founder, Pickup Communications
I have just finished my morning workout when I see the alert: Man shot outside Manhattan hotel.
Huh, I think as the dread creeps in. Shootings in New York are rarely Breaking News.
Moments later, the update and the ah-ha: He was a health insurance executive and (an inescapable detail given the front-page image on this front-page story) he was white.
It is at this point that I should will myself away from the news of the day. But I am getting said news from a paper of record, the gold standard of journalism for many inside the industry and out. And so, I keep glancing and refreshing and swiping and scrolling. And my blood pressure keeps rising and my heart begins to drop.
From this same publication that has gotten so much right when it comes to the trauma-informed journalism I have advocated for since leaving the industry five years ago comes a quote from the victim’s sister-in-law, included in a thread of Breaking News updates (because of course there is now a Breaking News thread): “He was a good person, and I am so sad.” And that is that, save for two other details: that he had two kids and that the sister-in-law was on her way to be with his family.
She was on her way…
…to be with his family.
My heart. For his gathering family now being asked for interviews, and for that reporter who had no doubt been furiously working the phones and the socials before a pickup and…bingo!
And my mind goes back to Breaking News more than a decade ago. I was doing such a good job searching for the identity of a woman killed just an hour or so earlier, just a suburb or so away from the big city where I worked for big-network TV. Such a good job that I may have just found her brother — her brother! — after the dots of the Internet connected and led me to her name (maybe) and his name (maybe) and the place that he (maybe) worked. If he’s still at work, I’m not on the right track because surely he would not still be at work, I reasoned as I dialed the number and his assistant picked up and she cheerfully patched me through. And I told the man with that foreboding Oh, but I must have the wrong person because surely you would have heard, that his dear sister was dead.
Of course, by this point, with homicide investigators only just dispatched to probe this case of this father just murdered outside this Manhattan hotel, dozens upon dozens of news outlets are doubtlessly doing the same. Furiously searching. Furiously calling. Furiously commenting and DMing and pleading with their urgent requests and empty condolences. So furiously are they digging through the moment that they can’t possibly see how they are harming, not healing, and how they are nourishing a dangerous seed that was planted long ago. And my heart sinks further.
And then there it is, the video. Because with any modern shooting, there is surely video to follow. Mostly us reporters don’t look for the video. Because mostly all murders simply must be the same. And what’s there to see, to know, to write about in papers of record if the shootings captured on video are shootings that happen all the time? But every once in a while, when the body count is high enough, or the property is valuable enough, or the victim is wealthy enough or white enough or some other form of unusual enough, there is a story that causes even the papers of record to seek the video out.
Of course, this video, proudly obtained by this particular publication (as it will be by many others in the hours to come), doesn’t show the actual killing. Certainly not. The actual killing would be in bad taste. The actual killing would be actually too much.
We’ll put up the warning that it will include graphic images, the editors must have discussed in haste. And then just show the victim walking into frame and the gunman appearing and the gun being raised. But that’s it, no more, the video will end there.
Because this video is being responsibly shared.
But the people will want to know what happened next, the discussion presumably continued, aloud or unsaid. And because they will soon be able to find the full video in any number of places with just a few taps and swipes, we might as well let them know in tasteful words below our tasteful video where exactly the bullets struck the doomed man and how his body reacted and what he last looked like as a standing, living person.
(No thought for his children who may read those details, too.)
Surely readers can be assured these details are of importance. After all, how can we form an opinion without all the facts? But then, what exactly is this conversation I keep refreshing? What am I gleaning? What is it informing? Is it meant to enlighten or entertain? Create empathy or destroy it? Prevent violence or perpetuate it? The answer, as so often happens, is becoming unclear.
After this video, the coverage takes a sharp turn toward the perpetrator and rightfully so. He is still out there, after all. Still dangerous. A community is still at risk. The justification can be made that any one of us could be next! There he was at the hostel and in the back of a cab. Tips! We need tips! And we all lean in for more.
Then, an arrest.
Such disappointment from so many on social media who liked him so much more on the lam. Such intrigue, such sleuthing, such servile suggestions about such a handsome young man, all lost with the capture that makes him far less interesting than a fugitive on the run.
But wait, there’s more.
He has abs! And a valedictory address! And so many inconsequential details to feed so many Everything-you-need-to-know-about-[Suspected Killer’s Name] lists and the #Free[SuspectedKiller’sName] hashtag.
Forget the man who was murdered and his sister-in-law so sad, his kids without their father and the unseen impact that the taking of a life really has on families and communities behind closed doors and beyond bold headlines. Forget the nightmares and the flashbacks and various manifestations of trauma and grief that are still to come.
Because when a shooting becomes a sensation, the lives and the loves of the victims seemingly cease to exist. There is no space in this world of this side or that, of with-them or against-them, of good guys and bad guys, for complex characters and real human experiences. No time to wait for relevant facts. No duty to do no harm. No expectation of thoughtful conversation. Certainly not when the story is breaking. Maybe after some time has passed. But then, by then, the story will have already been defined, a history hastily crafted by this digital world that encourages us to either feel without facts, or not feel at all.
And the sad reality is this: the seed for this story was not planted by social media or mainstream media or those shots outside that hotel. It was not planted by vitriol for an industry or enough-is-enough. It was planted by all those shooters who came before this one, who watched and learned and praised and idolized, who realized, as one such perpetrator noted before perpetrating one such sensational act, that “when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are.”
Now sit back and be horrified as this latest sensation inspires the next. And our brains will be filled with all the facts that will follow. But none of them will help us solve the actual scourge of gun violence — the sort of gun violence that doesn’t get such attention in the paper of record, because the facts and the victims and the shooters and the trauma are simply not unusual enough.