Can't Bear to Look - Adam Lanza

I found an excellent website that chronicles media distortion of the photos of Adam Lanza, the alleged shooter at Sandy Hook. Examining aerial footage of the location, we see that many crisis actors were hired to walk in a circle at the St. Rose Pre-School as a hoax.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/crime/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/connecticut-school-shooting-adam-lanza-1492742

"Photo Apparently Cropped to Place Adam at Periphery"

http://andrewazzopardi.org/2012/12/16/adam-lanza-named-as-the-one-who-gunned-down-27-victims-in-newtown-connecticut/

This 2005 photo provided by neighbor Barbara Frey and verified by Richard Novia, shows Adam Lanza. Authorities have identified Lanza as the gunman who killed his mother at their home and then opened fire Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, inside an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself. Novia was the school district’s former head of security and he advised the school technology club that Adam and his older brother belonged to. (AP Photo/Barbara Frey)

http://andrewazzopardi.org/2012/12/16/adam-lanza-named-as-the-one-who-gunned-down-27-victims-in-newtown-connecticut/

http://www.examiner.com/article/police-news-identify-adam-lanza-as-connecticut-school-shooter-sole-gunman?cid=rss

http://www.people.com/people/news/category/0,,EventTax:TrueCrimeNews,00.html

http://www.eldiario24.com/nota/272867/encontraron-el-cuerpo-de-adam-lanza-y-aseguran-que-fue-el-autor-de-la-masacre.html

If you examine the limited set of pictures available of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, you will notice the media has been consistently blowing the photos up beyond normal resolution, cropping them in irregular styles or otherwise tweaking their display so the kid becomes distorted in all kinds of ways. I can only guess at the reasons, ranging from speed and carelessness; cheap editorial payoff (in other words, making Lanza look more like a freak, a monster or an apparition from another-world) or to just equate “unknowable” with fuzzy.

…And then, to the extent site after site seems obsessed with excessive cropping and zooming till Lanza becomes a moiré pattern, I’m guessing there’s an editorial instinct out there that jamming him under a magnifying glass might somehow makes this sense- and information-defying figure more accessible somehow.

Now I understand some people, maybe most people will read this and say “so what,” seeing Lanza (shape-shifted, or not) simply as the anti-Christ. But I have a simple point to make. If we’re going to learn from this tragedy, especially with all the question marks that exist surrouning mental health, distorting Lanza’s image beyond his already thoroughly internally-distorted self is a bad idea. Rather, it is incumbent on us to try and see him as clearly as we can.

I should add that there are several photos also circulating (mostly from a younger age - 1, 2) that show Lanza as less of a freak. The photo below, in particular, shows Lanza at the oldest and most expressive, complete with details in the background that one can speculate about. (Click for full size.) Because you can’t encounter this expression without have to actually relate to the kid, though, I guess it’s not surprising the media is mostly opting for the weirder stuff above.

SOURCE Photo Aggregation: http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/12/cant-bear-to-look-why-the-media-is-full-of-distortedfreak-photos-of-adam-lanza/