Randi Kreiss

Are you headed to the hottest place in hell?

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Reminder: Two weeks ago I challenged you to tell me a story, possibly your story, in 50 words or less. No rules; just keep it true-ish. You can be anonymous or enjoy a byline. So send me a story, and see it published here.

I’ve been worrying about what part the press plays in today’s climate of fear.

Since the Paris attacks I’ve been considering an awful possibility: that a free press sometimes does more harm than good. From the second the news of the attacks hit the airwaves and Internet, the coverage was nonstop sensationalism. The bare facts were bad enough; the heavy breathing of some on-the-scene reporters was unprofessional and unhelpful.

The sickening repetition of gruesome details, accompanied by videos replete with staccato gunfire, became a stressor in and of itself. Every time you tuned in to hear the weather, it all began again. Wolf Blitzer. Megan Fox. Erin Burnett. Anderson Cooper. Everyone breathing fire when we desperately needed someone to dampen the flames.

In a moment of subversive self-indulgence, I began wondering if a free press is somehow unintentionally complicit in increasing the chances of more terrorist attacks by providing so much free publicity. See one, do one. Clearly, ISIS is reading the Madison Avenue handbook, and we are playing into its methods and madness.

I believe news coverage may indeed encourage more attacks. That goes for the nonstop news blitz following shootings of any kind in America. From Littleton to Newtown to Colorado Springs, from Aurora to Washington, D.C., someone, hinged or unhinged, sees something that grabs headlines and guarantees notoriety and decides to do something. Get his name in the newspaper. Go out like a rocket and take others with him.

We all want our news as unfiltered as possible, but couldn’t the media, out of regard for common decency and to diminish the free PR for the shooters, exercise some restraint? Tone down the wild speculation and fear-mongering as an incident unfolds. A news blackout following a global terrorist attack might work, but that isn’t the way a free press works in America. And a free press is the centerpiece of our imperfect democracy.

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