How Much Information Is Enough?

[hc4361]

I am not tickle tummed and relish gory novels but I have just read a graphic news report about a violent crime that has made me feel repulsed.

Not long ago the report would simply have said that the victim suffered appalling injuries that horrified the emergency services, or something similar. This was surely to protect friends and family of the victim as much as to protect the casual readers' sensibilities.

Do we really need all the gory details to be published in our national newspapers and their online sites? I really think not.

[emmie]

no we don't, poor families who sit through the hearings are bad enough..

[Peter Pedant]

ref ?

for artistic reasons only - to see if it is disgusting to me i n equal measure as it is to you ....

[hc4361]

I didn't want to post a link, Peter, but on reflection I think I should.
It is a very distressing murder.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5352757/Woman-dies-horrifying-sexual-assault-Russia.html

[ummmm]

I could only read the headline.

I watched a program last night. Stacey Dooley on domestic violence in Russia. absolutely shocking. It seems it's the norm.

[Peter Pedant]

erm yes that is pretty disgusting I admit ....

[hc4361]

I agree with you there, emmie.
It seems to me to be a lack of respect for the victim and the families to print so much detail just to sell papers or get clicks.

[hereIam]

Jesus H Christ!!!

[Mamyalynne]

I can see no useful purpose to such graphic detail - bad enough for jurors in many cases to have to see and hear such evidence.

Also agree it's disrespectful.

[Gromit]

The Daily Mail knows its readership.

The Mail website has a big following in the US where higher violence levels are more acceptable.

[hc4361]

The report in the Metro is even worse. :(

[hereIam]

Poor, poor woman.

[ToraToraTora]

gawd I can't unread that. Horrific.

[sp1814]

I definitely think that the detail could have been left out of the report.

What kind of mind actually conjures up that to inflict on a woman.

The devil walks amongst us...

[Zacs-Master]

I remember a few years ago a news report on BBC rad 2 where they described one particular horrific action which the parents had carried out on a child. Johnny Walker came on immediately after and said ‘no we really need to hear such appalling details’ and I though ‘good on ya Johnny’. I thought it was very brave.

I haven’t read the link. Don’t want to.

[andy-hughes]

I think it's part of the price we pay for our enhanced media.

As you say, years ago, details were minimal, but the advent of cyber-news has meant that the devil may be in the detail, but the on-line clicks certainly are.

I am always reminded of the time when this level of uncensored visual imagery started to assault the world - the day after 911, when images of the planes were played relentlessly 24/7 by the world's media.

I recall a psychiatrist on Radio 4 saying that this constant repeat bombardment of these horrendous images was not 'news', and it was actually bad for people viewing them.

Needless to say, he was not listened to then - or now.

[Zacs-Master]

Do we

[douglas9401]

Maybe, since we are rightly upset and outraged by individual crimes like this but are able to hear of mass murder by states around the world in the shape of 'collateral damage' and other funky phrases over breakfast but carry on eating, we need a dose of reality.

Long faced newsreaders do nothing to convey the horrors that are left after a bombing or assault with HGV so our own imagination is left to fill in the blanks and automatically censors so we don't have to deal with it.

There are beasts among us and we need to know about and deal with that.

[andy-hughes]

douglas - // There are beasts among us and we need to know about and deal with that. //

The question is not whether we need to be aware of some of the evils in the world, it is whether we need the levels of detail that some of the media seem to think we need.

I would suggest not, and this is a prime example.

The additional level of detail does not increase my ability to prevent a recurrence, in fact it increases nothing positive whatsoever, and that I believe is the point that hc is making - it benefits no-one to know these details.

[douglas9401]

Your suggestion is noted.

[ichkeria]

We don't "need" the details in that sense but we aren't being given them because we "need" them. We didn't need to know that a woman in Saratov had been raped and murdered because sadly that is hardly news. The news was the method of the killing. So it's either give the details or don't cover the story.