Author provides insight into Columbine shootings, media

After spending 10 years reporting on the tragedy that happened at Columbine High School, Dave Cullen wrote a book about the survivors’ struggles and the killers’ motives. The IDS talked to Cullen, the author of “Columbine,” to see just what a small Colorado town’s tragedy means to college students nearly 10 years later.

IDS: Why did you decide to write a book?
Cullen: I was really torn apart just being around those kids and seeing what had happened to them and wondering really if they would ever get over it or if they would be like the worst of the Vietnam vets with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
Later I became very, very
interested in the killers ... The press got almost everything significant about Columbine wrong, about the killers in particular and what they were after, what they were involved with and what they were trying to do.

IDS: What do you think the media should have done differently?
Cullen: The main thing is we should not have speculated. ... Very quickly, in a matter of hours and a few days, that speculation turned into fact.
The problem we have in journalism is sometimes we’re too eager to please our audience. The American public really wanted to know why did this happen. Columbine scared the shit out of the American public, and they were demanding answers.

IDS: At a big school like
Indiana, how do you prepare for something like this?
Cullen: I think the biggest single thing is coming to terms with depression in young adults. Suicide, alcohol and drug abuse and the other things that are caused by depression are much more significant.
What we can learn from the two killers is one of them, Dylan, was deeply depressed. ... If Dylan had gotten treatment for depression, it’s very unlikely that he would have gone ahead and done it.
There was always controversy about colleges notoriously hiding (suicide) statistics. They’re terrified of parents or students considering this school knowing that.

For more on Cullen’s book and the Columbine tragedy, go to www.davecullen.com/columbine.htm.