The Humane Way to Cover School-Shooting Anniversaries
Twenty years after Columbine, reporters have plenty of experience covering these tragedies. But balancing the demands of journalism, human curiosity, and the well-being of survivors remains a work in progress.
As the first anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting approached, a group of students, teachers, and parents addressed reporters at a forum organized by the local school district. Sue Petrone, who lost her 15-year-old son, Danny Rohrbough, in the suburban-Colorado massacre that took the lives of 12 students and a teacher on April 20, 1999, appealed to journalists to focus on the victims and to be sensitive to the wishes and needs of the survivors.
“[I] respectfully request that the media not broadcast any footage from April 20,” Petrone . “That would be footage showing students running from the school, students on stretchers, and murdered students.” Finally, Petrone and the others asked that the killers’ names
