After Omaha, Media Questions:

In light of the Omaha mall shootings, the questions resurface:

How can or should the media cover shootings to avoid the copycat possibility?

Or:

How much should the media go along with giving these perpetrators the exposure they covet, and are risking to kill for?

The CBS/AP news report begs these questions:

Eight people were killed and five wounded before the shooter ended the horror by taking his own life. He left behind a note that read, in part, "Now I'll be famous."

Robert A. Hawkins made his wish come true Wednesday.

"I'm going to be famous now," the 19-year-old wrote in a suicide note before killing eight, wounding five and killing himself Wednesday afternoon at the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall.

The troubled youth behind these shootings made news. He took eight innocent people's lives.

Does it matter if his intent was to "be famous" or not? Should it?

Some newspapers years ago decided to not run high school shootings on their front pages, in a modest attempt to deter copycats.

We're living in a world where the information is out there, and the old media is still struggling to figure out its 21st century gatekeeper role. So decisionmakers in newsrooms now have to also weigh the news merit versus the concept of 'people are going to find out anyhow.'

Like the upstate New York editor who withheld the name of a woman found in the car of a local politician, while acknowledging the media reality by saying "Knock yourself out on Google, folks."

My $.02? These people make news. Therefore it's difficult to reason out a way to keep them – or their names – out of the news accounts. I'm not sure that there is a way to eliminate the copycat risk while maintaining the press' fundamental role to inform.

However, the caveat in this is to not cater to or give voice to any agenda they espouse. Like odd circumstances with the Virginia Tech shooter, who sent his "multimedia manifesto" to NBC hoping they'd run it and share his sick worldview. Which they did, drawing on-air criticism from this writer.

This caveat, though, carries its own caveat: If giving them a forum could potentially save future lives, then you need to seriously consider running their message. (This was the case with the Unabomber, who killed and threatened and injured his way into getting play in the Washington Post and New York Times. Click here for a great refresher on that story.)

Dealing with life and death and the repercussions of coverage is a complicated equation for everyone in the media business, with the added influence of "will it draw eyeballs/readers?" always overshadowing the decision.

Reporters and editors should always err on the side of informing the public, though, while not glorifying or dignifying the perpetrator with anything beyond "just the facts" journalism.