In the New Zealand parliament today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got it right with respect to how to respond to the murderer and terrorist who killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday. This is from the New Zealand Herald:
“Ardern told Parliament the Australian man accused of carrying out the atrocity was seeking notoriety.
‘That is why you will never hear me mention his name. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless.
‘Speak the names of those who were lost, rather than name of the man who took them.
He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name,’ she said.”
Which is exactly right. We shouldn’t mention his name; we shouldn’t talk about the so-called manifesto he posted online. We shouldn’t talk about him at all. We should talk about the people he killed and not about him. Because talking about him and his stupid ideas are what he wanted.
Obviously, we cannot force the news media to do this. But they can do it on their own. They don’t have to mention his name. That’s not suppressing news. That’s everybody voluntarily doing what they can to deny people like this the publicity they seek. He can just be the person who killed 50 innocent people in Christchurch. His name does not have to be mentioned.
But this may be something our media can’t do. For example, in its article reporting what Prime Minister Ardern said, The New York Times mentioned the man’s name. It’s like they didn’t even read, or understand, what Prime Minister Ardern said. It’s like they can’t control themselves.
Which is sad because this is something we can all do that might reduce the number of these terrorist attacks in the future. I don’t know if it will reduce them, and there are other things we need to do, too, but it can’t hurt to do this while we do the other things.
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