The Media Pornographication Of Shasta Groene's Horror

I suppose that this is one of those issues that require a degree in journalism to understand. Maybe it requires a graduate degree and many years of experience. Certainly nobody without specialized training would place the sensibilities of a middle-aged woman above those of a frail, traumatized child. If you have been formally trained in journalistic ethics, then you might understand this. Although I doubt that the rest of us would have the slightest chance of grasping the nuance of contributing to the suffering of a little girl while protecting a mature political hack.

A little over 3 years ago, Joseph Duncan attacked a family in their home in North Idaho. He brutally murdered three people and kidnapped two young children. The crime was so gruesome and sensational that I learned of it on the news while working in El Salvador.

Duncan tortured and molested the kidnapped children, and ultimately murdered the boy, Dylan Groene. The girl, Shasta Groene, was rescued and is now scheduled to testify at Duncan’s penalty trial, where he stands to receive the death penalty.

The judge presiding over the case decided that justice could just as easily be served if the media were not permitted to record and doubtless sensationalize Shasta Groene’s recollections. Certainly, after all she has gone through, she does not need to have her schoolmates reading about her experiences and she does not need to have her story immortalized for public viewing on mainstream media websites. A just world would consider it a moral obligation to spare the child any more emotional distress. Sadly, the mainstream news media do not seem to be of this just and moral world.

The mainstream media have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the judge’s ruling. The media believe that Shasta’s torment should be splashed on the front pages and should lead off the evening news for all to read and see. I’m sure that all of you are looking forward to the pornographic details of Joseph Duncan’s molestation of little Shasta.

It’s not as though the mainstream news media are incapable of compassion. In fact, the primary reason given for why you probably have not read a juicy story about a prominent Democratic politician is out of consideration for his middle aged wife.

Several months ago, the National Enquirer super market tabloid reported that John Edwards, the former U.S. senator from North Carolina, who was twice a candidate for president and the 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president, had fathered a child with a former videographer for his recent presidential campaign. The mainstream media did their best to ignore the story, in spite of the fact that early in the primary season, he was polling even with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He really was a serious contender at the time. Nevertheless, the mainstream media chose to ignore the story. And so it languished, until now.

The National Enquirer once again did what the mainstream media once did: It pursued and investigated the story. And a couple of weeks ago, the Enquirer, acting on a tip, caught Edwards entering a hotel room occupied by the woman who bore the child and kept watch until he left the room in the early morning hours.

Once again, the mainstream media have refused to report the story, even though Edwards was at the time under consideration for a vice presidential nomination and, failing that, was considered likely to gain appointment to a Barack Obama cabinet, should the horror of an Obama presidency come to pass, probably as Attorney General.

One might think that the media that disseminated the New Times’ baseless innuendo about a supposed affair between John McCain and a lady lobbyist would be equally as eager to report on John Edwards’ peccadillo. But you’d be wrong. But lest you think that ideology and party affiliation influenced the decision, pay attention to what longtime mainstream journalist and former New Republic writer Mickey Kaus discovered during his inquiries into the affair.

He learned that the reason that NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and all major newspapers are ignoring this story is their sympathy for John Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Edwards is dying of cancer. And it’s very thoughtful of the media to take that into consideration, even though she and her husband exploited her illness for political gain when it suited them.

But if the media will muzzle itself in consideration of a sick, middle-aged woman, then why can’t it exercise similar restraint when the psyche of a little girl is in the balance?