Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Day 85: 'The Baby P' phenomenon

(What's a bigger story than a dead baby?)


Lil P.

When I visited The Old Bailey courthouse earlier this year, the guard there told us to go watch the case in Court 7. "It was an interesting one," he said. Well, he was right. Now, a couple months later the case has taken on a life of its own.

In the case, a mother and two accomplices were found guilty of abusing the 17-month old named Baby P until it died (name can't be released for legal reasons, although I'm pretty sure it's in my previous entry). This included such inadvisable parental activities like swinging the child around by its neck and just flat-out beating him. Well, after the case finished and the story was released to the public (covering courts works different in the UK), it sent a shockwave through London.

There seems to be a new story each day on Baby P, and the grotesque neglect he endured. The uproar has successfully helped get rid of children's services and doctors who failed to do enough/anything about Baby's neglect.

The Sun, a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch and the most popular newspaper in England/second most popular in the world (3.1 million readers), got 1 million people to sign a petition to ask for the child service industry people to be sacked. Even England's most vile criminals are disgusted by Baby P's abusers.


Some of the gruesome injures to Baby P.

When I saw an hour of the Baby P trial back in the day, it was definitely tragic. But I never expected it to blow up like this. Hopefully it at least incites some change to the system. However, does this case feel a bit overexposed? Sensationalized? I think so (although a case like this would certainly have the same affect in America), I mean, look at all these frikkin' links I found necessary to post. There's just that much out there.

It's all very sad. But it feels like it's reached a point where it's just a media war. Papers trying to sell papers, not because the story is still newsworthy, but because it sells papers. Terry Schiavo anyone? OR perhaps this Emmy award-winning South Park episode? If it was just the tabloids, it'd make sense, but it's not. Anyway, if it incites change to the UK's seemingly effed up child protection services, it's cool. But people tend to lose focus on that aspect real fast. That prison story helps prove my point. What do you think, is it too much?

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