“Tragic and horrifying details inside the shooting at a high school in Kentucky. What the shooter was thinking and firsthand accounts from those inside the building. Stay tuned to learn more on our two-day special edition of Good Morning America.” There is a problem with this headline I heard on an early morning before school. Shootings happen much too often in America and it’s tragic. However, the real tragedy comes in America’s addiction to knowing every single detail of what happened and the media’s willingness to provide in-depth coverage on the lives of the shooters.

There are documentaries covering Columbine, countless articles over Sandy Hook, and people talked about the Las Vegas shooter for several weeks. Just recently, there was a shooting in Florida that received its own special edition on Good Morning America. The topic has been the number one trending news on Twitter and there have been over five million tweets about it. It’s only human nature to be saddened and upset by these events and naturally, when we are upset, we want to know why it happened. However, this is a major problem: there have been countless scientific studies showing that when the media goes above and beyond in their coverage of the lives and motives of criminals, it only encourages copy-cat crimes.

A study done in 2016 by Jennifer B. Johnston of Western New Mexico University found that since the mid-1990s, with the emergence of widespread 24 hour news coverage and the rise of the internet, the quest for fame among mass shooters has increased. The rate of mass shootings has increased to an average of one every 12.5 days, compared to a pre-2000 level of about three events per year. The study states: “If the mass media and social media enthusiasts make a pact to no longer share, reproduce or retweet the names, faces, detailed histories or long-winded statements of killers, we could see a dramatic reduction in mass shootings in one to two years”. The study is public information and is available to every major media organization. They know what is going on and there is no excuse for not making this change.

Major media outlets know they aren’t supposed to show the face of the shooter. They know they aren’t supposed to reveal personal details about a suspect’s life and they know they are even supposed to refrain from saying his/her name, if possible. If major media outlets are aware of this and have been told for years that their coverage can encourage copy-cats; why do they continue to make shootings the main feature of their news shows when they occur? The simple reason is profit. They want money. They know people want to see inside the lives of the shooters, and people are naturally curious. They know their show’s views will increase when they are the source for in-depth analysis of the life of shooters, as opposed to the news sources that choose to respect the research behind this issue. One of most telling examples of their sensationalism is the footage shown on the news taken by students inside the school in Florida. Students pulled out their phones during the shooting because they knew they would receive media attention for the graphic details they exposed. They were right, the media has not stopped tweeting and covering these videos. The media is willing to ignore the fact that they are literally putting lives at risk in order to gain viewers and make a profit.

We all want to show our respect for the victims. We all want to prevent crimes from occurring. However, this becomes a problem when the coverage of these events turns into a profit game. When there is concrete scientific evidence being ignored in a negligent manner for  personal gain, we have a problem. Media outlets must make the conscious choice to place safety over profit. As consumers of media, we can make a choice to reject this abuse of tragedy by changing the channel and ignoring the retweets.