Trial by tabloid
JonBenet Ramsey's killer may have been caught this week in Thailand. John Mark Karr, a 41-year old father of three children, confessed to Thai police. He had been a subject of interest in the ten year old police inquiry in recent months because of letters that he had written to a documentary producer who had specialized in the case.
What's most interesting about this case is that Ramsey's parents were virtually tried in the media. The South Park crew came close to outright accusing them and the implications were front and center in tabloids for the better part of the decade. Like OJ, many people believed that the Ramseys killed their own child, regardless of any evidence indicating that this was so.
The Ramseys seemed to be less-than-sterling parents. The beauty pageant shots of their daughter were creepy to the extreme--almost boudoir shots. We wanted to believe that people that pimped their daughter up like that were guilty of darker sins, like murder.
But apparently they weren't. If Karr is convicted, they will be exonerated (Mrs. Ramsey died of cancer earlier this year).
As the Internet and the blogosphere take their rightful place as the village drums in our society, we, as individuals, need to do what the media collectively has proven to be incapable of--exercising restraint in rushing into judgement on the guilt or innocence of tabloid celebrities. It will be so much easier now for this kind of rumor brushfire to start, because now we all have matches. I no more believe newspaper speculation than I trust the President's opinions on WMDs in Iraq.
(Although I still think OJ did it)
Posted on August 17, 2006
