media distorted something? - that could never happen.....
Seeing the media backlash over two radio DJ's after the suicide of a nurse, and it would definitely be hard to miss. Having also had to support family during a different but somewhat similar event has given some perspective - but in addition, having heard about some other tragic events in the past few days, it definitely raised an eyebrow for me as to the media hype of one event and silence over others. Many people have strong opinions relating to the royal family and the right to privacy, but with the amount of funding the family receives from the commonwealth should be directly proportionate to how little privacy is received or perhaps this funding should cease? Irrelevant to my point though.
Suicide was not the intended outcome of a pratical joke and though the consequences to the actions should be known, the blame that has descended on two people for this is completely unjustified. Though the event may have caused the final straw so to speak - the information received is skewed. What was the hospitals part in this? - for them to have "served" the royal family for over 100 years, there was a clear breakdown in protocol and although this may have been human error, lets face it - a public figure got pregnant and unless the hospital visit was abortion, I am guessing that people would somehow find out. We dont know what other pressures this person was under, however to blame two strangers to a person for a suicide gives the message that a joke one day, all of a sudden a disgusting act the following day, can be solved with scapegoats to a station that "approved", aired and publicised the joke, but was suddenly an organisational victim to these two DJs actions.
Now this is what gets to me - there have actually been quite a few suicides that have remained unreported in the media and this is what is cause for the greatest concern. Persuing and persecuting people is apparently the obvious cure for a range of mental health issue - we just need to find who to blame. If there is no one to blame, there is no story, but now the audience now make judgements on a topic that cannot be explained so simply. The other suicides, though no less tragic are not only not reported, but sometimes even covered up. Have we created a world where we cannot hear about a story of someone who was unable to cope, someone who thought that the world would be better off without them, someone who had gotten so low that the instinct to preserve their own life was overpowered but could maybe have been able to find some support if the media perhaps reported on some of these issues - and people knew what support might be avaiable. Can we only accept that an event like this could only occur because of another persons actions? Anyone lacking some semblence of ignorance would see that this is complete bullshit.
What we have now though, is worldwide coverage - focussed on blame, not prevention nor cure - now who is to blame for a disgusting act?
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.