A reader writes:
I'm a long-time daily reader and big fan of the Dish. However, your Face of the Day featuring the Aurora theatre shooter was a lazy post that seems beneath your blog. Why on earth would you give that person, that face, any more exposure to your readers?
Another reader quotes me:
As for obsessive media coverage of the events, we at the Dish decided to step back. For reasons perhaps best made by Charlie Brooker.
Did you actually watch that Brooker video you posted? Because just a few posts later you went ahead and used that "murdering little twat" as the Face of the Day (and he was already staring at us from the Beast sidebar). If you didn't watch the video, here's what the forensic psychiatrist said:
If you don't want to propagate more mass murders: don't start the story with sirens blaring; don't have photographs of the killer; don't make this 24/7 coverage; do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero; do localize this story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market, because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.
Emphasis mine (you also included in the Getty caption the body count of the killer). Why give this narcissistic psycho the attention he wants?
My defense of the picture is the photo itself. It was shocking both in terms of his weird hair and bug-eyes and general bewilderment. I thought it largely depicted him as the deluded fuckstain he is. The impulse was simply journalistic. The photo grabbed me. It screamed "Face of the Day" and I posted it almost as soon as I saw it. But I take your more general point. I'll be less impulsive in the future.
The Dish 