In the aftermath of Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas we find it notable how many national reporters can say they have “covered every mass shooting” of the past several years.
Co-anchoring an afternoon news block on MSNBC, Chris Jansing noted she had covered almost every mass shooting of the last ten years. Later in the day, we heard another national reporter say he’d covered every shooting of the last five. Others pointed out their experience on social media:
This is new. Reporters used to measure the success of their careers by how long they had covered city hall, how many murder trials they had covered, or perhaps how many hurricanes. Covering a mass shooting has become a journalistic right of passage.
