20060902 KDDC The questionable media priorities of the Ramsey murder

The JonBenet Ramsey murder news coverage – A question of questionable priorities.

September 2nd, 2006

I liked Carroll County Times writer Jordan Bartel’s September 1st, 2006 post on Jordan Bartel, Plugged In Friday: “Morals of journalists come into question with sensitive stories.”

The whole JonBenet Ramsey media phenomenon is quite an enigma for me. At a minimum it was sordid, salacious, manipulative, gratuitous and unnecessary.

Apparently Mr. Bartel and I are not the only ones who feel this way. See David Wissing’s very brief post on August 18th, 2006…

In 2003, there were 318 infant deaths in the United States attributed to homicide, according to Child Trends DataBank. Why is the media so morbidly obsessed with the death of a youngster from ten years ago?

Every senseless preventable death due to violence is to be mourned. I only wish as much attention were given to the tragic deaths of poor urban children played out across our TV screens all too often on the local television news. Their deaths are no less a tragedy, especially since many of them did not have a meaningful chance at a productive life due to circumstances out of their control.

The Ramsey child death is certainly terrible, however, no more, no less than the other 300 or so child deaths that should not occur in our country.

Mr. Bartel’s post began:

You've probably heard the phrase, "If it bleeds, it
leads."

It's a disgusting, but somewhat of an unavoidable rule for
media and is one that I never really got behind.

But apparently
media today are so stuck on that rule that it should be amended to, "If it bled
10 years ago, it still leads."

You see, I've been very troubled
lately by the media coverage of the newest "revelations" of the JonBenet Ramsey
case.

Read the rest of his post here.

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Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.
E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org
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