Why does the media report on SWATting incidents?

SWATting is when police are called about a crisis at a celebrity's home. It might be a bomb threat or shots fired or a break in or a hostage situation. It's called SWATting because sometimes entire SWAT teams respond to the false alarms. The SWAT teams respond because calls about an armed suspect or shots fired have to be taken seriously.

Back in the old days, the media would not report on false alarms. SWATting is nothing more than a false alarm, yet the media not only reports on SWATting it is also "top of the newscast news."

Note to the media: it doesn't matter if a celebrity's name or home is involved it is still a false alarm. And by reporting false alarms you are probably only encouraging more false alarms -- more SWATting and more copy cat calls.

Stop reporting false alarms, news media and you will stop encouraging these dangerous false alarms. Use your resources to cover real news and not false alarms.

Sure, you have to dispatch crews to these calls but when you discover it's a false alarm the story is over -- and it wasn't a story, so you don't report it.

By reporting these false alarms it only appears you need to make a story out of "no story" to fill air time.

And police agencies: we all understand that SWATting is dangerous and a waste of resources, but when you call attention to it in the media you are also encouraging copy cats.

This is nothing new guys. Why are you changing the rules? Is it just because you want to be able to mention some super star's name in your newscast?