Response to Beth Marsh’s Blog “The Keli Lane Saga”

(http://bethscrimblog.blogspot.com/)

While I was reading Beth’s blog I found it very interesting as I agree that the media portrayal and demonisation of ‘child killers’ is just unbelievable. It must have been very intriguing sitting in on the Keli Lane case and get a first hand look of the side of her the media doesn't show.

Kayla Rogers

We see them in the media all the time, the evil, heartless ‘child killers’. In australia and around the world there has been so many of these cases lately, baby Tegan, Kiesha Abrahams, Kayla Rogers, Azaria Chamberlain, just to name a few. The medias fascination with these people is incredible, their private lives are thrust into the public spotlight, just like a ‘saga’. These individuals are stripped of their identity and thrown into the category of ‘child killer’.

The media ignores most of the facts and manipulates every story to make it more newsworthy. These people and their crimes fit into the newsworthy values of violence, children and individuality. (Jewkes 2004). Something else which makes these cases interesting is that the child victims represent the 'ideal victims' and most of the parents do not fit the 'ideal offender' stereotype.

Azaria and Lindy Chamberlain

I think the medias fascination with these people stems from the fact that they are different, they have a twisted mentality, thus the media utilities this belief in order to paint these people in a more demonic light.

We need to realise that these people need help, they must have serious mental issues in order to violate every possible evolutionary and biological principle, the last thing they need is the media hounding them and their family.

Also the criminal justice system operates under a innocent until proven guilty principle, the media however contradicts this principle and paints them in a demonic and satanic light. Therefore, this can create problems throughout the criminal process as their right to a fair trial is tarnished.

It may sound like I sympathie with these people, which is not the case. I am in no way saying that what these people did wasn't horrific, but rather we should be able to critically assess the medias coverage of these people in order to formulate our own opinions about them.

References

Jewkes,Y. (2004) Media and Crime 1^st ed. London: Sage Publications.