Dear Dr. Ink:
News organizations have started using initial caps to describe the Washington-area sniper. Fox News has used Beltway Sniper, the New York Post has used Psycho Sniper, and several outlets have used Serial Sniper or Suburban Sniper.
What are your thoughts on the apparent need to assign a moniker to the sniper?
Brian Friel
Answer:
This is a most important question, getting to the heart of journalism’s purpose. One of our jobs is to alert citizens of dangers that may threaten them. This requires paying attention, standing watch, and using extraordinary resources when the dangers are most grave. But another of our jobs is to help citizens rank their fears. In spite of the drama and mystery surrounding these shootings, the risk of a citizen being killed by a sniper is lower than, say, dying in a car wreck.
In this context, the use of the Murder Moniker may cause a problem. Such names go back at least to Jack the Ripper. In our own era, names such as The Hillside Strangler or The Zodiac Killer or Son of Sam have become commonplace. Fictional dramas about serial killers are a popular genre: think of Hannibal the Cannibal or the Tooth Fairy in “The Red Dragon.”
The tabloidization of killers does have a social purpose. It magnifies the story, calls attention to incremental details, mobilizes law enforcement, and attracts tips from the public. But the Doc is not naïve. These comic book names are used to attract eyeballs to the page or the screen.
Dr. Ink grew up reading, and loving, the New York tabloids, so he has a taste for the lurid and sensational. But the Murder Moniker goes too far. It grants a celebrity status to a deranged person, feeding the ego of someone who already thinks he’s God.
