Monday 2 June 2008

'Poor taste' just doesn't begin to describe it

The Stuff website runs a weekly quiz for readers. You can use it to test how up to date you are with current events.

In last week's quiz the reader was asked, how many times is Clayton Weatherston alleged to have stabbed Sophie Elliot? The multi-choice format gave the reader four possible answers to choose from, each a number over two hundred. Perhaps Mrs Elliot could have answered correctly: she saw the child she had raised and loved being stabbed to death by an angry ex-partner.

Thanks, Stuff, for turning the misery and pain of the Elliot family into a bit of titillation between the sports news and the TV section. Clearly, Sophie did not die in vain.

5 comments:

BigGirlsBlouse said...

How disgusting...

Julie said...

Maybe it's just because I'm a bit soft-centred at the moment for various reasons, but I find all this sort of grief porn really horrible. All the pouring over horrific details of violent crimes, or violent deaths, shots of bodies being taken away from accidents, the footage of Len Brown's last words before his heart attack (and hopefully he will recover) on One News on Sunday night, etc. It's like this is all some intriguing episode of CSI, or a computer game, not actual people, with real families and friends. :-(

Anna said...

'Death porn' is exactly the right phrase, I think. Since having kids, I've become more soft-centred than ever. I never used to entirely see the point of mothers' organisations like MADD - I used to think that you didn't need to be a mum to appreciate that drink-driving and the deaths it cause are terrible. But I think I get it now - I look on terrible events like Sophie's death with a different kind of empathy for her family. And it drives me crackers to see people's grief turned into entertainment.

Anonymous said...

Julie, Anna, I agree. What kills me is that they'll hide behind freedom of the press to do what they like so that they can pick up the boost of sales this type of reporting generates instead of showing some social responsibility. :(

Anonymous said...

oh my god this is incomprehensible, I thought Stuff was good, up until now. I'm seriously thinking about boycotting this tasteless news-service from now on. I cannot believe they did that. Shocking.

Julie, you're so right about 'grief-porn', it's disgusting