In the UK we are dealing with a disturbing story regarding the deaths of a mother, father and daughter.
What was thought to be a house fire now appears to have been a deliberate arson attack.
The Police are now also putting forward the theory that the father may well have killed his wife and daughter, the family pets and horses before setting light to the house and killing himself.
I don’t have a television set and I only read a newspaper at the weekends so I have been spared a lot of the gossip and speculation and trial by media. I have relied on the more solid BBC for the news reports via the internet. But I have been troubled by the reporting nevertheless.
For this incident and for others, it seems that trial by media has become the order of the day and I wonder how fair and just this can possibly be?
I am wondering why the news reports are only ever full of disasters, troubles and tribulations. Why does no-one seem to think good news is newsworthy?
It concerns me that we have all become voyeurs revelling in the periods of distress and crisis that others are experiencing.
What good can come of this?
It seems to me that all it does is normalise the abnormal, making unspeakable happenings speakable and smudging the lines between what is acceptable in civilised society and what is not.
I am troubled by this.
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I took the view, several years ago, that I was not prepared to have my life blighted by the relentless diet of negative, salacious and even malicious information that passes for news these days. My comment in one of my regular fits of pique was along the lines of “I’m not reading another d*** paper or watching the news til they publish as much good news as bad”. I have stuck to this – the things that are important filter through to me and it may surprise people to know that I do not feel cut off at all – in fact I feel liberated and much happier without the daily diet of depressing dross. The things that are truly important, the successes and joys of daily life take on a whole new meaning when they are no longer drowned by the unpleasantries that the media thinks we thrive on.