The Media Pornographers of Public Grief

Sharon Walker, of the Bronx, N.Y., said she felt compelled to come as the mother of a nine-year-old girl.

"I just wanted to feel the spirit of the people of the community ... I feel like it happened to my child," Walker said.

San Fransicko Chronicle

 

Ilana Mercer:

 

 .... The pornography of public grief in our country is almost as warped as the evil (not ill), mother-slaying, mass murderer responsible for the Sandy Hook carnage. There is very little dignity in the freaky spectacle of mass contagion – where members of the public turn professional mourners, flock to memorial happenings for victims they never knew, and mill about for hours in the hope of being discovered by the master of ceremonies, the journalist.

... this blow-by-blow, wall-to-wall coverage of the events in Newtown – and of every related utterance on the issue since, official or other – is the very essence of the postmodern deconstruction of the discipline of journalism.

If there is no edifying information on the case, no reporting needs to take place."

 

Roger that.

 

Comments

[Yael]

And the sequel is... Media Pornographers of Public Grief see themselves as VICTIMS {of Trauma Too). Unbelievable. http://twitchy.com/2012/12/22/cnn-wont-somebody-think-of-the-traumatized-reporters-who-have-to-cover-sandy-hook/

[Mannie Sherberg]

One of the many oddities about present-day America is that ever since Judge Harry Blackmun discovered a right-to-privacy in the Constitution, there's been a virtual disappearance of privacy in American life. These days, nobody says "It's none of your damn business" -- for the good and simple reason that everything is now everybody's business. We are probably not far from the day when someone seriously proposes that the name of our country be changed to the Oprah-ized States of America. Which might not be a bad idea. We sure as heck aren't the United States anymore.