Anna Breslaw’s 600-Word Sprint: Media Shame Game Makes Bad News Worse
TakePart presents Anna Breslaws 600-Word Sprint, a weekly column of pop culture analysis and social justice insight. Look for Annas Sprint every week on the homepage of TakePart.
Two recent tragedies have amplified a tendency of the media to scapegoat the media as a careless steamroller crushing real human beings while in pursuit of tawdry stories.
The apparently self-inflicted deaths of British nurse Jacintha Saldanha and Gretchen Molannen, a Florida woman who suffered from a rare genital disorder, have both turned into media events that stemmed from media people going after media stories.
Its never been a natural human tendency to see shades of gray when tragedy strikes, and there seems to be increasingly less distinction between the paparazzi-style journalism of TMZ and, oh, I dont know, actual journalism.
MORE: Why Do We Commit Suicide?
Both of these recent suicide narratives have been retold in posts and stories from across the entire spectrum of the different journalism breeds, but what the coverage has in common is more important: Everyone in the current events business seems to be blaming various communications outlets (not their own) rather than focusing on ways to prevent these sorts of suicides in the future.
Also common is a downplaying of the contributing circumstances that had been pressing on both of the suicidal women long before the media got involvedcircumstances that might be addressed to the benefit of people who are still living.
The more prominent event was the suicide of 46-year-old Jacintha Saldanha, a London nurse at King Edward VIIs Hospital, where Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, was bedridden with hyperemesis gravidarum: severe vomiting associated with pregnancy.
Where Kate goes, the paparazzi are sure to follow. A pair of young Australian DJs prank-called the hospital claiming to be Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth, checking in on Middleton. Saldanha passed the phone on to a hospital employee who unwittingly provided private medical information to the Australians.
The hoax quickly hit the Internet, embarrassing Saldanha and the hospital. Shortly afterward, Saldanha was found dead in her apartment. She left a note for her family, the contents of which are private.
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Anna Breslaw’s 600-Word Sprint: Media Shame Game Makes Bad News Worse