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Posted on December 16, 2006
Filed Under Error and bias |
If you’ve been following the coverage of the five murders over in Ipswich, UK you may be wondering why the TV newscasters continue to insist on describing the women as prostitutes, as in “the 19 year old prosititute”. Does any 19 year old deserve to be described as a prostitute and only a prostitute? This is one of the insensitivities that originates in the social class and financial security of staffers in large news organisations.
First of all she’s barely an adult; she’s really a girl; she undoubtedly struggled with many issues she could not quite decipher and a lunatic has killed her because he made a decisive judgment about her morality. News organisations don’t draw the same conclusion but they are making the same judgment, in my view. There could be any ways of describing these woman that could reflect the diversity of their lives. Mother, for example. Daughter. The commonality these women share is motherhood, sisterhood and being daughters. And they happened to be working the streets one night when this lunatic was out and about.
When broadcaster Jill Dando was killed she was described as a broadcaster of course but the many talents she brought to her life were also a large part of the package. It’s taken until parents have stepped onto the stage to do that dreaded broadcast for SKY to open up to the people involved here. I’ve found myself quite sickened by the line “the 19 year old prostitute.”
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ok, let’s get this straight. susan dando was a journalist. susan dando was murdered. susan dando was referred to as a journalist in reports of her murder. are we right so far?
so. next step. five prostitutes get murdered. in the reports of their murder, they are referred to as prostitutes.
what exactly is wrong with that? is it that we are identified by the jobs we do? that’s a big society issue which affects everyone, you and me included. or is this just a problem with the p-word? in which case, refer to their occupations (which, in this case, seems to be an important factor) as sex workers, street walkers, call girls, hookers, strumpets, working girls, whatever?
actually, it strikes me that the real problem isn’t that the media refer to a 19-year old murdered prostitute as a prostitute - it’s that a 19-year old *is* a prostitute. that her life could be so fucked up that she saw that as her only option, that society could so easily allow this to happen, and that male punters could actually pay for her body and still be walking the streets themselves with their balls still attached.
call them prostitutes and we might be forced to face this problem. sanitise their deaths and we’ll just sweep the problem under the carpet. which would you really prefer?
Actually I was struck by that difference in the coverage between RTE news and Sky News. RTE reluctantly used the word ‘prostitute’ referring mostly to the murdered ‘women’. Whereas Sky seemed to use no other label than ‘prostitute’ when referring to them.
Hello James. I know where Harry’s coming from of course but I go with you on this one. The murdered woman, the murdered girl. I don’t need their lives sanitising, Harry, just respecting would be good.
I do think you’re reaching for a double standard here, simply becuase of the baggage associated with the word prostitute.
There seems to be no problem referring to Dando as a journalist when reporting her murder. Was there a problem with referreing to Alexander Litvinenko as a Russian spy or former Russian spy) when his murder was reported? Or should he have simply been referred to as a Russian male? Or how about referring to Alan Cunniffe as a postmaster or Anthony Campbell as a plumber (or apprentice plumber) - were these reports wrong to use the murder victims’ occupations? Were they being disrespected too?
Harry - it’s what I feel. A 19 year old girl…. put myself in the position of her father and feel awful about it. I don’t think I need to rationalise or reconcile beyond that.