Well folks. It's been a while. My excuse is that I have been busy actually being a journalist, other than just aspiring to be one. Plus I have a swanky new laptop in which to continue my frequent musings.
There's pretty much only one story that I can't get off my mind at the moment. I thank God every day for the wonder that is the Sky News iPhone App, with its screaming yellow 'Breaking News' banners to satiate my news hungry mind.
Yep, I'm talking about Joanna Yeates. Normal girl, walking home after a night in the pub, stops off to get a pizza and some cider before continuing home. A week later, her body is found dumped in the snow.
It's SURREAL!!! How can that happen? It scares me because that is such a normal, mundane routine. Each day the case gets a bit more tragic. Today it emerges the poor girl could have been strangled with her own sock. Unbelievable.
It makes me so sad for Joanna and her family who are completely devastated. Their lovely daughter who had her whole life ahead of her, as well as a glittering career as an architect.
But it does make me wonder, and forgive my cynicism, if the press would have devoted so much coverage to Joanna, had she not been an attractive, middle class young woman with a promising career ahead, to make the story a little bit more tragic.
It goes back to a story I wrote a few years ago just after Madeleine McCann went missing. (If you've read this, you've probably gathered by now that this is something I feel a tad strongly about).
Hundreds, literally hundreds, of young boys and girls go missing or get murdered in the UK every day. So why do only some get press coverage and others don't? Why do some fit the criteria in some ways and others are forgotten?
Not for a second does Joanna not deserve this amount of press coverage. She deserves every effort that is humanely possible and police working 24 hours round the clock to find her killer.
But so do the killers of every other murdered person in the UK. Whatever class they are.
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ReplyDeleteGood to see you blogging again (I am downright lousy at it) and congratulations on the new job.
ReplyDeleteHere's something I was reading this morning which I think ties in with your post - http://fortyshadesofgrey.blogspot.com/2011/01/media-and-ideal-victim.html - there is definitely such a thing as an "ideal victim".
In addition to what they wrote I think it's also true that newspapers pick victims that are the most photogenic/ they think best represent their readers.