Columbine: Busting myths about the massacre

For The New York Times / Retro Report

On April 20th, 1999, two students at Columbine High School murdered twelve students and a teacher and sent the nation scrambling for answers.

As Dave Cullen detailed in his book, “Columbine,” initial news coverage quickly portrayed the perpetrators as two alienated students, obsessed with carrying out a revenge fantasy against bullies. Those early media profiles have since proved largely false, but they continue to shape the way we understand school shootings today.

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