Please don't push that big red button

The problem highlighted by the coverage of the healthcare CEO shooting, and the danger of telling audiences what to think. Or: never underestimate people's willingness to risk it all.

Lightness, lightness! Where’s my fucking lightness? So went the familiar roar from the editor at one newspaper I worked on - because it’s relatively easy to find tales of terrible things happening, harder to inject fun, wit and glamour into your output, day in day out, in the face of the news flow.

But this week I’ve been stumped. Never mind Selena getting engaged, or Taylor’s tour juggernaut coming to an end. There has been one story around that has had me transfixed, and one story only. That of the shooter and the CEO, two people reduced to symbols by the weight of debate surrounding them, even before a trial.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to start opining on the ethics of shooting dead a stranger (it’s still a no from me), or the failures of US healthcare. As with Trump’s latest victory, which caught out many on this side of the Atlantic, it can be useful to remember that a shared language elides vast differences. We here in the UK like to keep a very close eye on what’s happening ove…