Writing at CJR Daily, Brian Montopoli compares the coverage of the March 21 shootings at Red Lake High School in Northern Minnesota with that of the Columbine High School shootings.

"The press, thankfully, has done a far better job with the [Jeff] Weise story than it did in Columbine," Montopoli writes. "The primary reason is that the shooting itself has been far less of a cultural lighting rod than Columbine, and, as a result, there hasn't been the same pressure to rush to judge the killer's actions. But it also seems that reporters have learned a few lessons in the years since Columbine."

While he notes that the press has "overplayed" suggestions that the shooter, Jeff Weise, was a "Nazi," Montopoli says that news accounts of the Red Lake shooting have produced far fewer myths about the incident than were created after the Columbine shootings.

2002 Ochberg Fellow Dave Cullen maintains the Columbine Almanac, which details and debunks the media-created myths about the Columbine shootings. In a recent posting on his blog, Cullen noted that Jeff Weise "seemed to be trying to copy Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, right down to the myths. He consumed the same media as the rest of us, so he copycatted the stuff that never happened as well as what did."

Cullen also laments that media references to Columbine are still "perpetuating some of the biggest Columbine myths ... They're still calling the Columbine killers Goths, and making them members of the Trench Coat Mafia. Good lord. When is our industry going to figure out how to clean up our mistakes and quit repeating them?"

» Click here for a Dart Center tip sheet, "Covering Children and Trauma."