Comedian Bill Maher called on Friday for a total “media blackout” when it came to school shooters, arguing that the constant attention often lavished on the perpetrators of such crimes could make the idea of committing similar crimes seem attractive to certain people.
Maher made the statement during Friday’s episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” adding that he did not want to see anything about the alleged shooters — especially if denying them the publicity they so desired might also discourage the next person from choosing to open fire in a school.
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How about a media blackout on school shooters so we don't inspire the next one? pic.twitter.com/ovMrwRxDB1
— Real Time with Bill Maher (@RealTimers) April 1, 2023
“The other thing I’d like to say about this as we’re — the media — anxiously waiting on all this information about the shooter … how about we have a blackout on the shooters and what they did?” Maher began, to applause from the audience.
“You know, this is … Yesterday was the opening of the baseball season,” Maher continued, adding, “Now, in baseball, when somebody runs on the field, the camera doesn’t show it. They don’t give that person any publicity. Why can’t we at least do that in this country?”
“I don’t want to hear anything about it. We know it happened. I don’t want to know about — I don’t want to know what orientation this person is, how old they are, what their manifesto said. I don’t give a s*** about any of it, because it’s just going to inspire the next one because they all feed on each other,” he added. “That’s the least the media could do.”
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Maher’s suggestion actually falls in line with a policy that The Daily Wire adopted — at the direction of editor emeritus Ben Shapiro — just days after the 2018 school shooting at Marjorie Stonemason Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the value of public knowledge regarding specific names and photographs of mass shooters is significantly outweighed by the possibility of encouraging more mass shootings,” Shapiro wrote at the time. “Studies suggest that media coverage of mass shootings can have a significant impact on the psyches of potential mass shooters — that such potential mass shooters have a cognitive craving for attention, which they know they will receive for committing atrocities.”