Warning Brain Dump Ahead
Sir Ian Blair says what he thinks about Soham and racism. I actually must applaud him, even if I think he is a tad naive about the media. Saying this kind of thing is likely to cause you a hell of a lot of trouble as the media scum pounce. But it did need to be said.
Think about it for a moment... how is it that the Soham murders were given so much press attention when children are murdered all the time. The reason? Because the victims were pretty little white girls who lived in a pretty little village. I have nothing but sympathy for the victims parents, family and friends. But they must realise that the media didn't choose to cover the story because they felt it unusual or frightening but because it'd sell well to their demographic (white, middle aged, family people). Sir Ian is just being honest.
Imagine what the story would have been if the victims had been poor, black Londoners whose parents were drugged up junkies (but there were no connections with crazed religious practices, that always sells). Would there have been such an uproar? Answer that question honestly, and then think about how disgusting Britain's media machine is. The kids would have been just as sweet and innocent but their story wouldn't fit the required picture. You know it would have got one page, deep within the papers and then it'd be forgotten about.
We after all still live in a country where cheap homophobic jokes are used as front page headlines.
I'm just not sure whether there is this institutionalised racism in the press. Every story has its own aspects, and I think it might be these that determine whether or not it gets into the press.
ReplyDeleteI've spend some time arguing against the inversion of this thesis on other blogs, for example following the mass coverage of the death of Anthony Walker.
See here for an First Post article that goes along these lines.
Soham was just a particularly attractive story for the media. Do you honestly think that if a couple of Black girls had been taken by their caretaker and murdered in the same way there would have been no coverage? No. This story ran because of the 'betrayal' element of an individual in power, the strangeness of the girlfriend Carr, and the slow unravelling of the story.
Blair is an idiot to make such a sweeping generalisation. There probably are writers on the News of the World who tend towards reporting white-centric stories, but there are also going to be PC liberals on the Guardian who report the downtrodden ethnic minorities above all else.
I think you're right Jae, but for me it goes a step further.
ReplyDeleteWhy is the killer of a child vilified by the press (and subsequently by the sheepish public) with far more vigor than the killer of say, a 40 year old bloke stabbed to death on the way home from the pub?
Why is it Sky breaking news to hear one British soldier died today in Iraq when many more died and remain unreported?
I feel we need to think on a wider scale - all murder is abhorrent and there shouldn't be a degree of severity dependant on age. All killing in Iraq is really awful what ever their national identity.
"PC liberals on the Guardian who report the downtrodden ethnic minorities above all else"
ReplyDeleteSteven Lawrence comes to mind as a prime example.