Despite victim family member Caren Teves' pleas Mar. 12, 2013 on twitter, to not use James Holmes name and use “Aurora Theater Shooter, defendant or coward” instead. national TV networks and most local stations used Holmes' name. The Denver Post wrote an editorial about why they are using Holmes' name. They missed a few points. First, the Soviet Union had secret prisoners and it didn't end well. The second point is that Google works off of key words and those outlets that don't use Holmes' name are penalized. Finally if they name is withheld, the power goes to those that have the name. Suppose Bradley Manning wouldn't like it that the names from the information he gave to Wikieaks were redacted and he gave the names to the Taliban anyway. The Afghans who cooperated could have thought they were safe. At least when Wikileaks released their names, the Afghans could check if their names were on the list.
A tactic Teves could use is try to turn Holmes' name into a derogatory verb or noun like Hitler or Santorum. However, she could use to time to read the book "Aurora" and get the victims antiretrovirals.
Comments