When a crazy person shoots up a synagogue, we don't say he was just crazy.

There's no reason to implicate anti-Semitism in it.

It found the target that it did because of the culture he was in.

In the wake of last week's shootings, the media struggle with the question of causation.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm Bob Garfield. In its fight with publishing giant Hachette, Amazon seems to have thrown its customers under the bus.

I mean, they're making it harder for their customers to get books, to have a good experience on the Kindle, to have quick delivery.

These are values that they've trumpeted for the past 20 years, and here in this

dispute, they seem to have abandoned them. And the confessions of a former tabloid hack.

I'd like to say that was the bottom of my particular journalistic barrel, but here's me dressed in a burker.

Yup, a burker. There's more coming up after this.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

Last week in Isla Vista, California,

22-year-old Elliot Roger killed six people and wounded

13 others before killing himself. The media leapt to find out why he did what he did.

And they found a digital footprint complete with YouTube videos, an autobiographical manifesto,

and comments on the message boards of

self-styled men's rights groups, comments filled with rage about his inability to attract

a beautiful woman.

The instant psychoanalysis of a killer and of a society was underway.

...