Tom Teves urges the leadership of news organizations to find better ways to inform the public about mass shootings that puts safety before profits.
Why you should listen
Tom and Caren Teves faced every parent’s worst nightmare: Their oldest-born son, Alex, was killed shielding his girlfriend during a mass shooting on July 20, 2012 inside an Aurora, Colorado, theater. The senseless murder of their son prompted the Teves’ to try to stop this from happening to any other family. They began research into the motivation that leads someone to walk into a movie theater, church or school and want to kill random people. What they found is that the data was complicated, but surprising clear. The single, greatest motivating factor that all of these murderers had in common was the desire to become famous, to be noticed. The Teves immediately started working to educate the media so that news organizations would understand that if they could remove the motivational factor, they would take away the shooter’s self-perceived “reward” of notoriety. After eight long years, many media entities have changed but others still continue to let profits take priority over responsibility, common sense and safety. Join the Teves in helping get the media to stop making anti-heroes of these murderers.
