Barry Shnikov
27th-January-2006, 11:14 AM
Sir Iain Blair has apparently been obliged to apologise to the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman because, in a private event for the Metropolitan Police Authority, and in response to a question about media coverage, he pointed he to the inconsistency of the media making such a hue-and-cry about their deaths whilst failing almost entirely to report with similar lip-smacking enthusiasm on the deaths of children in ethnic communities. (Read about it here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4653130.stm).)
Is it just me or is it ridiculous to suggest he has anything to apologise for?
Also, he apparently said that he ‘couldn’t understand’ why the Soham story was such a big story. The Chairman of the MPA said it was because they were “little girls who were murdered” and because they were “missing for 10 days”.
That is wrong. Or at least, it’s not the whole explanation.
The reason why it was flogged to death by the media was because there was a strong possibility that somebody had interfered with the little girls. Any story with a touch of salaciousness is lapped up by the red-tops – and presumably, by their target market. The Soham story was a super-stimulus and that’s why it went ballistic.
I should make it clear that the parents of any child who has been brutally and painfully taken away from them have my sympathy. (Perhaps a little more so for those who never get a public outlet for their grief, but suffer behind closed doors.)
Is it just me or is it ridiculous to suggest he has anything to apologise for?
Also, he apparently said that he ‘couldn’t understand’ why the Soham story was such a big story. The Chairman of the MPA said it was because they were “little girls who were murdered” and because they were “missing for 10 days”.
That is wrong. Or at least, it’s not the whole explanation.
The reason why it was flogged to death by the media was because there was a strong possibility that somebody had interfered with the little girls. Any story with a touch of salaciousness is lapped up by the red-tops – and presumably, by their target market. The Soham story was a super-stimulus and that’s why it went ballistic.
I should make it clear that the parents of any child who has been brutally and painfully taken away from them have my sympathy. (Perhaps a little more so for those who never get a public outlet for their grief, but suffer behind closed doors.)