Recently I have been writing about victims, real victims. They are the dead and injured from the Christchurch mosque attacks and the hundreds whose lives were directly affected by those hideous acts of terrorism.

It has made me more than usually sensitive to the ways victims are portrayed by media and, the more I have thought about it, the more I have seen how much news organisations have invested in suffering. They are heavily subscribed.

Much of it is unquestionably legitimate: The creation of victims is one of the consequences of war, crime, natural disaster, illegitimate exercise of power, and human nature. In highlighting the plight of such victims, media help to validate measures that help to prevent the acts that create the causes. And it attracts media audiences.

This attraction is the problem, because I fear that journalists approach some ‘victims’ wearing blinkers that blind them to anything that might detract from a picture of suffering, misery, oppression and injury.

The Covid pandemic has produced a heartrending number of genuine victims but, to that devastating total, media have added a few whose ‘victim’ label is just a little askew. Continue reading “Unanswered questions in MIQ victim stories” →