Distant Observer
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2011
- Messages
- 104
- Reaction score
- 446
Roy Greenslade has an interesting article in the Evening Standard regarding the 'hierarchy of death' in terms of press coverage:
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Yes it is a good article. I think a number of factors are at play however the cases he refers to as having received huge press coverage are the ones which are the most shocking. Normal innocent girls from good homes living in quiet communities murdered by someone unrelated to them. There also is the opportunity for the public to participate through reading media reports - almost like a real-life detective thriller. Contrast this with say a young black man being murdered in either Clapton or Brixton in London. The assumption will be that it was a drug or gang related crime and that this sort of thing happens all the time and isn't newsworthy. This may or may not be true but the prejudice is extremely difficult to overcome.
One interesting by-product of the attempts to try and identify the second victim was the link to two murder cases where the husbands were found guilty of murdering their wives despite the lack of the body and where they are still protesting their innocence. This was mentioned earlier by badhorsie at #155. I very much hope that these cases can be re-examined. At the time they didn't receive any national publicity and I feel they would benefit from wider scrutiny even if it was just to confirm the guilt of the husbands.