To agree with this Guardian article about the London attack?

[Medeci]

And I NEVER agree with the Guardian
ISIS must be thrilled with all the dramatic media coverage.

My view is NOT to allow outright censoring of reportage or glossing over terrorist acts but for us, as citizens of a country on high alert, to be extra vigilant whilst still maintaining a level head. We need to know facts, not speculation. Especially not when these stories are running side by side with the latest news about Cheryl Cole's pregnancy.

The news has been full of appalling photographs and videos of the aftermath. Some with faces and pools of blood pixelated out, some (perhaps to drum up further hysteria?) without the pixels. In fact these images were available to see almost immediately it happened.

Then there are days and days of newspaper reports delving into the background of the attacker, his home life, his family, his job, the value of his "gated house in leafy Tunbridge Wells". Why is it necessary for us to know this information? It humanises him, it gives him a back story. That was my point about Gerry Adams. We couldn't hear his voice or his words so we didn't risk empathising with him. No, censoring him didn't stop any IRA attacks but it forced us to know that this man was an enemy without laying bare his house value.

What I'm really getting at is that newspapers have to make money and the more sensational the headlines, the better as far as they are concerned.

Why is it necessary for us to know this information? It humanises him, it gives him a back story. I know what you mean. However he was a human being. We have a desire to understand why and how people act the way they do. Why do they turn to violent terrorist acts?
I do feel very sorry for his family and ex partners though. Their faces and names should not have been splattered across the media.

But surely by trying to understand his motives we run the risk of someone empathising with him? As soon as the link to terrorism is established, we already know what the motives are. It almost martyrs him...which is exactly what he would have wanted.

You're absolutely right though, we want to understand, to work out what could possibly have caused him to carry out these acts but we need to be careful that we don't make this all about HIS backstory.

Echoing Enthusiasm and Badger. Its the same with US high school massacres where psychologists come out to say the press needs to not sensationalise or make this person a celebrity however macabre as it only fulfils their intended actions and inspires other disaffected young people to follow their example. However the press always completely ignore them in order to sell more papers by printing pages and pages about them for weeks.

We need to know what happened yes but reporting should be far more measured and the wasted airtime of pure speculation when not much is known and interviews/photos of people with links to the individual but most likely absolutely no knowledge of his plans are not part of the core story and dont help inform people in a meaningful way.

I agree that reporting shouldn't be sensationalist, and printing photos of injured people was dreadful.

I agree too that we need to make sure that reporting about the perpetrator, doesn't make this incident more about him, and doesn't martyr him.

I'd like to think that people are not so sheep-like, as to be persuaded to engage in similar behaviour, purely on the basis of media articles alone.

Or what Flutterby said, far more eloquently than me, I didn't make my point well at all. Damn lack of edit button

thanks Grommit