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ANY of you who read the Sunday Independent last week could not have been anything but touched by the poignant piece Sarah Molloy wrote about her late sister, Cathriona White who sadly had taken her own life a short few months ago.
Due to the fact that she was the ex-girlfriend of Hollywood actor Jim Carrey, her family suffered unimaginable intrusion from the press.
Journalists and photographers hounded them in their time of grief. It is a disgusting by-product of today’s society that certain papers will sell more copies if they have the all-exclusive photograph of a grieving mother walking behind the coffin of her child.
When has this become acceptable and why are we as consumers allowing it to happen? Personally, I never buy tabloids as, let’s face it, they are known to exaggerate a few facts and sensationalize a story.
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But what about the human beings that these gutter press publications harass and persecute? We NEVER need to see a photo of a mother or father burying their child with the pain etched on their faces with grief. We NEVER need to see or read about the family taking their loved one to their final resting place.
Recently after the Buncrana tragedy where a family were almost wiped out, a reporter posed as a mourner and wrote about personal details that she had obtained from the grieving lady who had lost her husband, children, mother and sister.
When is this despicable journalism going to end?
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We can only help to eradicate this by refusing to buy these trashy publications. Next time that you are in a shop buying your newspaper, think before you feed into this deplorable intrusion of grieving families. Don’t buy a paper that claims to have the “pics you have been waiting to see”.
No we haven’t been waiting to see them, we have a conscience and we still have decency in our being. We can only hope that if the audience is not there then they may stop.
Wouldn’t it be wondeful if the governing body raised the standards and made it illegal for funeral pictures to be printed or better still to put a ban on all aspects of families lives being printed.
So many times we have read a statement from a representative of a family pleading for privacy during their difficult time. In an ideal world this plea would be heeded.
Until next week, if you feel the need to see someone’s grief, stick to the soaps!
Orlagh x
