I'm completely unaware of how German news reporting and journalism works, and at this point I'm so used to the whimsical nature of US reporting that I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I think it's bad for the same reason that plastering a killers face and name everywhere is a bad idea - because it could inspire others to act out of a desire for attention or by now seeing whatever action as viable. Maybe they didn't care or reported the way they did because of the global nature of this incident. It's something with consequences that extend far beyond German airlines, and again point back to the complete shortcomings of societies ability to deal with mental illness in a proactive manner. If German media didn't report the name and identity I'm sure it would still end up all over the place in this incident. One other thought I had is that maybe there's no respect for somebody who most likely murdered 150 people.
Respect for him or not. But what usually happens here is that his family and friends will be harassed. In germany issues like this are taken seriously. Here is a famous example of German laws concerning human dignity.
That's a really good point, I hadn't considered family and friends and I recently read that they had to station police officers at his family's house to prevent them from being harassed too much. Wow, I'm glad that there are laws like that in Germany. Can't even imagine somebody winning a case like that in America without having a much worse reason than that.