My late wife used to say that if she had ever died in a horrible accident she planned on hanging around long enough to be there when some reporter shoved a microphone in my face.
I’m commenting from a British perspective, so there may be differences in how far we got down the road and how fast.
Ooops - my mistake.
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And that is one reason why you see so much coverage of the victims and their lives. Because if the media didn’t report those things a lot of people would be “troubled” as @Alessan said he is.
Also it’s just basic story-telling. “A man stabbed a woman to death.” OK, who is this man? Why did he do this? Who was this woman? All fair game. But when you get down to details like: “The victim’s favorite Beatles song was Hey Jude and she never cared much for peanut butter.” Then you’re just pandering and filling black* (for TV news; filling space for print or online.)
*I always wanted to write a screenplay about local TV news featuring a hapless news director named Phil Black.
No, not at all.
In fact i dont want to knw the names of mass murderers either. Dont give them the fame they want.
You call it “filling space”; I call it “painting a picture”, and consider it good writing.
Much is being made in the UK of the fact that one of the New Orleans truck
victims was the stepson of prince William’s ex nanny.
I was saying it’s merely “filling space” when it gets to the point that a newspaper article is telling us about a victim not liking peanut butter (unless it somehow had something to do with the larger story). Save that for the inevitable TrueCrime book.
This isn’t true. There is a strong element of community-mindedness and public service in those who choose journalism as a career. I’m not talking about publishers, by and large, or tv talking heads, but reporters and editors. Generally journalism has been a career for cynical romantics who like talking to strangers, and exposing secrets that deserve the light of day.
That said, providing a noble community service pays no bills. And advertisers, above all, want to know that their target clients are reading or listening to the media they are putting those ads in. So, you have to write things people want to read. And people want to read those ‘human interest stories’. Ergo.
The stories of the victims is a phenomenon which simply parallels the rise of mass murders. The common idea that the perps do it for the fame has given rise to an impulse to honor the victims with our attention (rather than the perp); although this is definitely only honored in the breach, it exists.