From Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opening fire throughout Columbine High School to Seung-Hui Cho chaining the entrance doors to Norris Hall shut before his shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, school shootings have illustrated some of the more haunting moments of American life in recent decades. This study examines the use of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics in the local print coverage of two prominent campus shootings: Columbine and Virginia Tech. The qualitative study analyzes ethical dilemmas in four newspapers’ coverages of the shootings based upon categories of sensitivity, sensationalism and factual error.

By Kirsten Adams, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University