Talk about willful ignorance.

Twice in the case of battered women and twice by males claiming unwanted sexual molestation from other males.

The “defence” only goes as far as allowing murder to be reduced to manslaughter, the maximum penalty for both are the same – life imprisonment.

In the Weatherston case the jury, quite properly, rejected the argument.

So what’s the issue.

methinks you as a journalist (I may be assuming that you are) have a greater idea of the importance and utility of the media than I do.

I’m not a journalist, I’m a media analyst. My sense of the importance and utility of the media comes not from being a part of it, but by spending a very great deal of my time looking at how media coverage interacts with society and politics.

As a result of the commercial and political construct of the media I always read in filter mode

But you still read. You’re not outside the loop; you’re part of it.

I would question that “It is the vérité quality of courtroom coverage which grants it credibility’ when it is selective and soundclip style.

I’m not arguing that vérité is automagically credible or objective – I’m saying that, all else being equal, it is the most objective, unfiltered source of information. Yes, sound-bites and selective editing and editorialisation are a problem – but they’re more of a problem with other formats. What you ought to be arguing isn’t a ban on vérité, it’s a ban on poor journalism. Good luck with that.

Fortunately the public dissemination of information and resulting debate is something the media does not have a monopoly on.

Name one fact about the Weatherston trial which wasn’t first transmitted by the media. Try to do the same for a few other prominent public events of recent times. If you weren’t there, or you don’t personally know someone who was there, chances are you can’t.

Now try and explain to me how the media don’t have a monopoly on public information.

L

I would question that “It is the vérité quality of courtroom coverage which grants it credibility” when it is selective and soundclip style.

Fortunately the public dissemination of information and resulting debate is something the media does not have a monopoly on. It never ceases to amaze me that the media think that they have a monopoly on our ears and eyes, and that they ARE the story.

I think that he is a psycho and it seems the jury was in agreement with that. He should be in jail for the rest of his life because psycho’s are notoriously difficult to treat but to deny 4 million people the right to use the provocation defence based on the abuse of that defence of one deranged human being is criminal.

At the risk of being accused of link whoring this is what I think about it.

L

It is the vérité quality of courtroom coverage which grants it credibility and requires society to consider it with the proper degree of seriousness and gravity.

L

There is no other agency which could have transmitted the necessary information to the public for discussion and debate – the courts can’t; the government shouldn’t; the lobby groups and PR teams can’t function without the media. How else are the public to get the information, and how else are the politicians to take their cues from the public?

How we air this sort of information is a trickier question, and, is likewise a matter to be left to the media (and proto-media such as blogs). Their job is broadly “to give citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing.” They frequently fall short of the ideal, but in this case they have fulfilled the task admirably, and in most cases, the more information available, the better the public is equipped for that task.

L

Must remember that we are not meant to engage in a meaningful fashion; that we are not meant to form independent and intelligent opinions; that we must be safeguarded from information that might encourage the forming of intelligent and independent opinion.

Seems some need to be reminded that thoughtful, independent opinions make for dangerous individuals.

So give us vacuous sensationalism or sweet sickly sentimentality. Keep us safe beneath an umbrella of dubious entertainment and infotainment. Let our opinions be led by those who are better than us, by those with the professionalism and intelligence to be trusted with anything other than watery swill.