Why New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Isn’t Breathing the Name of the Christchurch Attacker
In her first speech to Parliament since last week’s terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand prime minster Jacinda Ardern vowed she would not publicly say the name of the far-right mass shooter who took 50 lives. “He is a terrorist, he is a criminal, he is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless,” Ardern said. “He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name.”
It’s a marked difference from the U.S.—where media outlets routinely plaster the face, name, and background of terrorists and mass shooters on 24-7 cable news, feeding a twisted publicity machine that makes household names out of them. (To follow Ardern’s lead, we won’t name the person here either, although we all know who he is.) Ardern’s philosophy is in keeping with the No Notoriety campaign, an effort to minimize the media’s often gratuitous reporting on perpetrators of mass violence—“No name. No photo. No notoriety,” its tagline reads—and dedicate more focus to victims and heroes. (One exception for broadcasting faces and names: when suspects are on the loose.)
Founded by Tom and Caren Teves, whose 24-year-old son, Alex, was among those murdered in the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, No Notoriety’s principles have been adopted by the likes of Anderson Cooper and Parkland survivor David Hogg, who, after last year’s shooting at a school in Santa Fe, tweeted: “I don’t know the shooter’s name and don’t want to. If you agree, any time you see a post with their name or face from news organizations post #NoNotoriety with one of the victim’s names.”
The protocol isn’t just about publicity or the way that breathless, irresponsible news reporting can make celebrities out of terrorists and mass shooters. It’s also a matter of public safety, according to the Teveses. They point to data that suggests that media-fueled notoriety can inspire copycats. In a disturbing blurb on its website, No Notoriety details instances of mass shooters motivating one another, noting that the gunman in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre had reportedly studied the Columbine killers and mailed a preprepared package of video and other materials to NBC News; in the Northern Illinois University shooting a year later, the gunman reportedly studied the Virginia Tech killing. Before Sandy Hook, the gunman reportedly kept a spreadsheet of past mass shooters.
Last year, the government gave its official support to the tenets of No Notoriety. In its recommendations for how to make schools safer for children, the Federal Commission on School Safety, which was formed in the wake of Parkland, proposed the media not name shooters or publish their pictures. It would be one step toward a more thoughtful response to violence in the mass-shooting capital of the world. New Zealand is already poised to ban assault weapons after the Christchurch attack; Americans are still waiting.
