Four years ago, I stood silently on the banks of the small, heart-shaped Utøya Island in Norway. It is a moment I remember vividly.
“How could something so horrendous possibly happen somewhere so peaceful?” I agonised.
My cameraman and I had not made this journey to admire the breathtaking beauty of the lake and its leafy surrounds, which for years have drawn visitors to this isolated campsite. Instead, we were here to try and make sense of the evil actions that had polluted this paradise only hours earlier, when the crisp afternoon silence was broken by frantic screams and automatic gunfire reverberating across the vista. On the shore opposite, hundreds of horrified Norwegians were unable to help and unable to escape the deafening sounds the deadliest attack on their nation’s soil since the Second World War. And now, they stood here in silence.
‘It’s estimated that one in four Norwegians knew someone impacted’
The shooting spree lasted one hour and 13 minutes. Dressed as a police officer, the gunman methodically stalked, taunted and killed 69 people. Thirty-three of his victims were gunned down before their 18th birthday. Locals helped police fish terrified survivors who had swum for their lives from the bloody water. Thirty of those they rescued were wounded.
Ninety minutes earlier, the gunman detonated a bomb parked in a van outside the Prime Minister’s office in Central Oslo. The blast killed eight and injured 200 others. It was later estimated that one in four Norwegians knew someone impacted by the offender’s actions in those three deadly hours.
As a shocked nation recoiled with grief, the 32-year-old right-wing extremist relished his notoriety. After all, this was an attack he had been painstakingly planning for more than nine years.
From the intricate, handmade police uniform and identification badge, which had so cunningly fooled his victims, to the months he spent sourcing, smuggling and preparing his deadly arsenal of weapons. He established fake companies and credentials to buy chemicals and fertiliser without raising suspicion. He rehearsed his massacre for days at a time playing video games. He uploaded provocative photographs of himself armed with weapons on the internet.
And 90 minutes before detonating his bomb, he emailed his now notorious 1518 page manifesto to 1003 addresses. Many of those who received his dossier were journalists.
‘His was a made-for-media massacre’
His was a made-for-media massacre. The photographs, the manifesto, the defiant gestures from the dock and the final, chilling grin as he was driven from court to begin his prison sentence - all would feature heavily in the international media for weeks, months and years.
This was, some of his victim’s relatives told me at the time, exactly what he had wanted. He had carried out these attacks because he wanted a platform. An audience. Notoriety.
The resulting media coverage made him a household name. So much so, it has been reported this mass murderer receives thousands of letters a month from across the world, a deluge of “fan mail” reportedly requiring five full time prison guards to police.
‘We were once again confronted by a media-seeking murderer’
I am in no way suggesting the events in Norway and Virginia are linked.
For obvious reasons, I found this story particularly distressing. These victims are strangers, but they are also colleagues. It could so easily have been my friends, my newsroom, me.
However, what really sent shivers down my spine was the realisation we were once again confronted by a media-seeking murderer.
The premeditated and deliberately shocking action of killing live on television. Waiting calmly, weapon drawn and camera rolling, until the reporter was full frame before opening fire. Preemptively uploading video and photographs of himself days earlier, knowing they would be easily accessible to journalists. Phoning newsrooms after his attack. Faxing one a 23 page document praising other highly publicised gun attacks in the United States. And the new, horrifying low of live tweeting his crimes and uploading explicit video footage to ensure maximum impact and exposure.
This was no spontaneous act. And once again, the perpetrator has achieved his goal. The front pages of several British newspapers carry those horrifying images captured by the gunman. One full-page picture shows the weapon discharging and suggests readers “watch the chilling video at our website”.
‘Stories depicting moments of devastation often have the greatest impact’
Of course, news always has been and always will be shocking.
Stories and images depicting moments of devastation, terror and fear often have the greatest impact, bring about change, force action. They shock a social-media generation into caring or at least we hope they will.
Colleagues have struggled to strike this balance for decades. They haven’t however had to grapple with a seemingly insatiable and unfiltered social media and gunmen who strap cameras to their bodies and murder their colleagues live on breakfast television.
I’ve spoken to several American and American-based colleagues in the hours since the attack.
“It is a shameful new low in gun violence,” one told me.
“But in a country that refuses to do anything about gun control, we have to weigh the risk of inspiring or informing other deluded minds”.
I too worry about copy cats, because in this instance, the next victim could be me or someone I love.
‘Where do we and where should we draw the line?’
It is an agonising position to be in as a correspondent.
Without doubt, there is an overriding responsibility to report atrocities, to inform the public, to reveal the truth - however unpleasant that may be – and fight censorship. But as our audience’s eyes and ears, trusted to see and hear on the public’s behalf, isn’t there a compelling argument that we should be their conscience too?
In our determination to deliver audiences the full facts, the best access, the most compelling vision, where do we and where should we draw the line?
Surely, a good journalist doesn’t need to broadcast the final frames of someone’s life in order to adequately report the shocking circumstances in which they were killed? It is a question I struggled with a few days earlier when confronted with dozens of videos of an aircraft slamming into a British motorway, killing 11 people.
I do not advocate self-censorship. But surely, as a profession - as humans - we must accept an undeniable responsibility to not only protect families and audiences from unnecessarily voyeuristic, distressing and exploitive content, but also to avoid inadvertently inspiring others to carry out actions more shocking, more horrific, more… newsworthy.
This is a moral and professional dilemma that keeps me awake night after night.
I do not claim to be perfect. Nor do I claim to know the answers. What I do know, is that as journalists, we should do what we’re trained to and ask ourselves the question.
Related Reading
US journalists killed by suspect with 'powder keg' of anger
