Joanna Yeates murder coverage update: Facebook and psychics
After the irresponsible reporting of Chris Jefferies, the arrested suspect in the Joanna Yeates murder case, the story is still at the top of the news. It is a perfect storm for the media: a middle-class photogenic victim; a mystery over the disappearance; a murder; the opportunity to tap into fear - in this case, fear of women being attacked and, as we'll see, Facebook.
Natalie Dzerins has a good summary of today's Mail front page, in which Facebook is fingered as a possible suspect:
- A woman was murdered
- The woman had a profile on Facebook
- The woman might have been killed by someone she knew
- The woman might have been killed by someone she didn't know
Well. I, for one, am enlightened by this stellar piece of journalism.
And that is indeed about it. What a casual observer might wonder - although this of course might be seen as naive and irresponsible by the thin-skinned Avon & Somerset Police - is why, according to the Mail, Facebook is only being looked at now as a possible source of information, so many days later. However, the answer is probably that it has been looked at from the beginning, but is only being reported now, to find a fresh angle to keep the story going. Which is fine, of course, if it gets the investigation somewhere and is genuinely in the public interest - but perhaps it should be asked what is gained, other than more speculation, at a time when a family is still grieving.
Newspapers like the Daily Mail enjoy linking Facebook and crime, whether they're really linked or not. There's a 'scared of technology' aspect to it, and the idea that people aren't safe; there's a tapping in to fear among their readership of what's new and what the young people are doing. It runs a number of articles about bad experiences on the social networking site, which could lead some readers to suspect there is an anti-Facebook or anti social networking agenda at work. You could say that's because the target Mail newspaper demographic is people who wouldn't go on Facebook and who therefore might be fearful or suspicious of what's there; regardless, the coverage often focuses on the fear aspect, rather than the reality of millions of social networking transactions carried out without murder, assault or any negative consequences.
And then we come to the Daily Star. The Mail is really quite a mild treatment of this murder story compared to the Star's effort today. As Exclarotive says:
I can’t imagine how this must make Joanna Yeates’ family feel. To have a national newspaper exploiting her death by printing pathetic, desperate, unfounded claims from a publicity-seeking fraud under a headline promising some sort of hope.
The Daily Star. Because sometimes losing your daughter just doesn’t hurt enough.
Yes, it is truly appalling. It is that bad.
New evidence emerges? Really?
A PSYCHIC has told police she sketched Jo Yeates’s killers only days before the murder.
Carol Everett says she saw the pair in a premonition she had about the landscape architect’s death.
The psychic investigator insists she “saw” Jo being attacked by two of a group of five men after she rejected their offer of a lift.
I wrote a post yesterday explaining why the overuse of the term 'woo' by sceptics can be undermining, and here's a perfect example of why it's important to keep the powder dry for occasions when there are false claims and a horribly unpleasant exploitation of grief. This is simply disgusting. I don't care whether this 'psychic investigator' is deluded or deliberately misleading; it's disgraceful that a national newspaper should give credibility to totally unproven and unfounded claims in relation to a real-life tragedy. The paper even gives descriptions of the people 'seen' by the psychic, as if they're genuine sightings and not some made-up fantasy.
Don't blame the psychic; blame the newspaper that gave them the front page. And I don't care if it is 'just the Daily Star' and 'no-one will believe it'; that is simply not good enough. This is a human being's life, being belittled and cheapened and demeaned by this artifice, this pretence of insight, this nonsense.
So now we appear to have entered the realm of speculation in this murder case - bereft of leads, copy still needs to be filed and fresh angles found. And it is leading to some miserably bad journalism, exploitative, unpleasant and distasteful.
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January 7th, 2011 - 10:42
It’s not “only” the Daily Star – it has a circulation of 750,000, many of whom take this crap as face value.
And if you’re looking, the psychic concerned has a marvelously inept website, in which she pays particular attention to her “work” on the Madeleine McCann case. Which as we all know ended *so* well…
January 7th, 2011 - 10:47
It’s the McCann case all over again and I really hoped some lessons had been learned from that, apparently not.
January 7th, 2011 - 14:02
Lessons were learned: specifically, the lesson that this kind of bullshit sells more than enough papers to cover any legal costs.
January 7th, 2011 - 11:07
Bloody hell, there really is no sense of decency in the tabloids is there?
January 7th, 2011 - 11:15
The Daily Star – written by cunts, for cunts.
And who the fuck uses that 20p off thing to get the Daily Express as well? Having read the shit in the Star, who then decides they need a further top up on offensive shit?
Erm, just needed to get that off my chest.
I honestly don’t know how those who produce this stuff can live with themselves.
January 7th, 2011 - 11:24
…and apologies for the repetition in that third sentence. But definitely not the sentiment.
January 7th, 2011 - 11:15
Disgusting. The journalists at the Star should be ashamed of themselves.
Although to be honest, knowing the conditions they work under, it would take a strong person indeed to stand up to the editorial pressure for gutter press wallowing like today’s front page.
January 7th, 2011 - 12:15
There’s more than enough blame to go around here.
January 7th, 2011 - 14:10
I reckon the reason the Mail and their ilk like to blame social networking sites is because they are sacred of them. Prior to the advent of Facebook and Twitter they could print just about what they liked with little or no questioning from the public. Ok, they might get the odd letter here and there (which could be filed in the bin) or taken to court once in a blue moon, but they were never held up to as much scrutiny as they are now. This is why they attack blogs such as this one and social networking sites. Think of the uproar caused when Littlejohn, Phillips or Hitchens write one of their contemptible diatribes. This never happened in the past so they thought that people agreed with it. As it turns out a lot of people don’t. In fact a lot of people think it’s inciteful bullshit. These writers know they write shit and don’t like this being pointed out publicly. Hence the constant attacks on the media used to hold them to account. They are scared of technology as their tawdry profession is in jeopardy. They didn’t mind so much when technology was throwing other people on the scrap heap though did they? That was progress then.
January 7th, 2011 - 17:49
Do you think that The Star would have published these claims if she said it was a white killer instead of being young and mixed race?
January 14th, 2011 - 15:57
C’mon, there is enough wrong with this story without inventing a racist angle, if you really want to pick apart the star for its racism there are plenty of worthy “stories” to choose from. Although no doubt many star readers will be thinking “yeah, just like ‘them’”
January 7th, 2011 - 18:15
Rick, you could be right. I’d only dispute that Littlejohn etc ‘know they write shit’. I don’t think they could write any better – like Jeffrey Archer, they probably think they have real class.
January 8th, 2011 - 15:14
I interviewed Carol Everett many years ago – fruitcake psychic healer and gibberish pedlar.
She has a habit of claiming she can solve high profile murders with spectacularly shit drawings. Usually nobody takes any notice so hats off to the Star…….
January 9th, 2011 - 22:26
I know it’s not going to do me any favours but I’ve watched some Jeremy Kyle recently, he seems to have a pretty predetermined view on social networking and indeed any online activity, it perfectly mirrors that of the tabloids. But the weird thing last week was a couple on there had met on a train, just got talking, in public. Total strangers! Which should be more dangerous, or a lease just as dangerous. But the guy turned out to love being beaten up by women, he made £100’000′s selling his DVD’s online. But Jeremy didn’t have a problem with that. Maybe if they’d met online it would’ve been different. Just shows how a little bit of ignorance and a love of adhering to the popular narrative will make you look a bigger tool.
For the record I was off work with flu and the remote was too far away to change the channel.
January 12th, 2011 - 01:40
Why are you so adamant that the psychic is either “deluded” or “deliberately misleading”? It could be that she is.. right?
I’m an avid viewer of Medium…