Opportunistic media exploits tragedy

Obsession with Ramsey case diverts public attention from world affairs

September 11, 2006 —

Like moths to the flame, what is the media's obsession with all things JonBenet?

In case you've lived in a cave on Mars for the past decade, blindfolded, with fingers in your ears, here's a quick review of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case:

A six-year-old beauty pageant contestant was murdered (and potentially sexually assaulted) sometime on Christmas Eve in 1996. Suspicion has focused on the Ramsey family ever since her murder, although no one has been arrested in the case.

Yet despite the enormous continuing attention given to the case over the previous decade, no significant publicized advances in the case have yet occurred, despite the plethora of amateur and professional sleuthing.

The media has milked the JonBenet cow dry, but I don't fault people for showing interest in the case. It is a sad day indeed when few show remorse for a six year old's murder. Child murder and sexual assault are arguably the most heinous crimes one can commit in society. It should be a central aim of law enforcement to stop such crimes from occurring and to bring perpetrators to a swift - ideally painful - justice. But obsessing over one such case detracts from this goal; by being mired in the past, we are unable to look to the future and prevent further reoccurrences. Other than obsessive-compulsive parenting techniques, we are never told how to actually make our children safer, only to be afraid.

I smelled a rat as soon as I checked the news one morning, and saw that the alleged killer, John Mark Karr, had confessed. The success of CBS's Cold Case not withstanding, these cases usually do not resolve themselves without some significant advances in technology.

Never mind that Karr never appeared on anyone's watch list of potential suspects until he displayed a morbid fascination for the case with an investigator. Never mind that Karr's family stated he had been in Georgia at the time of the killing. When Karr's lawyers tried to prevent a DNA test, despite his public confession, I knew the media had foolishly taken the bait.

The media subjected us to witness a barrage of completely useless information in their quest to appoint someone as JonBenet's killer. Is it important to know that Karr's extradition flight meal consisted of roast duck and champagne? While intriguing, Karr's planned sex change operation has no recourse on the case. For the American media, the hype of talking heads can be as pornographic as any salacious images.

While the media was indulging in its own deluded fantasies, the Lebanon-Israeli conflict came to a ceasefire, with over 5,000 casualties.

Despite the fact that the war could precipitate a larger conflict in the region, the media focused on a ten-year-old case that involved the death of one girl. Despite the fact that the Lebanon-Israeli conflict whipped up anti-American sentiment further in the region, which will inevitably lead to increased violence that will kill more American soldiers and countless civilians, the media focused on a ten-year-old case that involved the death of one girl.

While chaos reigns across the earth, the media stuck to important news, like how a wacko in Thailand tried to have his testicles removed. Why focus on the sobering reality when we can live in a fantasy world?

Does the death of a little girl outweigh the death of thousands? It has in the past, and I'm sure it will in the future. There are plenty of sensational stories for the toothless journalists out there to find, and usually they revolve around one white woman's disappearance and/or murder.

Granted, a murder story is perhaps more interesting than geopolitics, but like a Dan Brown novel, these stories are devoid of anything other than hollow characters and shocking plot twists.

Pre-9/11, the rage throughout the U.S. was over whether California Congressman Gary Condit killed his missing intern, Chandra Levy (he was probably just sleeping with her). Last year, the media was swept away by the Natalee Holloway story, where an Alabama teen went missing in Aruba.

And while hopefully justice is meted out in these cases, there is nothing the American public can do that will render a conclusion. The media will keep focusing on these vapid stories as long as people pay attention to them. Until the public stops acting like raccoons, the media is going to keep dangling shiny things in front of our faces.