Kercher Family betrayed by insensitivity of the media.

“Everyone needs to remember the brutality of what happened and everything she went through, the fear and the terror… I think Meredith has been almost forgotten” said Meredith Kercher’s sister Stephanie after Amanda Knox won her appeal.

The main focus of media attention naturally falls on the prime suspect in a murder case. However the particular type of attention certain sections of the media have directed towards Amanda Knox has been at best insensitive. At worst it has been morally and ethically reprehensible.

The Sun newspaper has repeatedly referred to the accused as ‘Foxy Knoxy’ quite often in big headline splashes on the front page. Not only does the sexual inference of this phrase damage the defendant’s public image, the light hearted and jovial tone of this moniker indirectly makes light of Miss Kercher’s death.

The Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Mirror have all covered Miss Knox’s return to the United States using phrases such as ‘delighted’ ‘all smiles’ and ‘beaming’ to describe her demeanour. Using such language in the public domain is extremely insensitive towards those who may have known Miss Kercher, especially considering the many question marks that hang over the decision and the possibility of an appeal by the prosecution.

The most disgusting and disturbing example of the blatant disregard shown to the victim of this crime and her family comes from Channel 5 topical debate programme The Wright Stuff. On his programme on October 5^th 2011 presenter Matthew Wright asked his male viewers “If you met Amanda Knox in a bar and she invited you back to her room – would ya?” with the banner on screen bearing the tag-line “Foxy Knoxy – Would ya?” Mr Wright has since apologised but the explicit sexual reference and laddish tone of this question trivialises the death of a young girl in horrible circumstances and is utterly indefensible.

What seems to have been forgotten or disregarded by some media organisations is that a family is still grieving for a loved one. Meredith Kercher’s family has suffered this kind of insensitive and distasteful treatment of the case for nearly three years. As if the torment of losing her wasn’t enough the Daily Mail, The Sun and others have turned her loss into a macabre money spinning circus for their own ends at the cost of common decency and press integrity.

Carlos Tevez and the modern footballer’s bubble.

Exactly What Carlos Tevez actually refused to do in Munich is still up for debate. The player is now claiming he declined a request to warm up after having just done so, with Roberto Mancini and several senior club officials insisting he refused to play.

Whichever request was denied, the arrogant and petulant nature in which he defied his manager is symptomatic of modern day, higher-earning footballers’ almost complete removal from reality. It shows the contempt that many well paid players have for some of the basic structures of society, like chain of command, cause and effect and mutual respect. You or I would think twice about flagrantly ignoring a reasonable request at our place of work because we are acutely aware of these intrinsic principles. 

The mind-set of players like Tevez is completely different.  Having been paid vast sums of money from a young age and constantly pandered to by club officials and agents, they seem to have a significantly underdeveloped sense of responsibility in relation to their profession. When he was asked to play, or warm up again, by Mancini it is irrelevant whether or not he wanted to. He had a responsibility to himself, his employers, his manager and the fans to carry out that request because it is what he is paid to do.

It is a depressing and bizarre aspect of the modern game that so many top flight players are so far removed from their fellow man on the terraces. This forms a large part of the reason fans are so quick to turn on a player when he is going through a bad patch on or off the pitch. The greatest and most important distinction is financial, why should they have sympathy for someone who gets five times their yearly salary in a week? It is human nature to afford the ludicrously well-paid less margin for error, the public anger towards former RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin is testament to that.

Whether he is fined, sacked, suspended or sent to the moon, the feeling of his disdain towards the club and its fans will linger and that’s the problem. Every time a high profile player shows this kind of contempt for the game and the fans, it opens ever wider the chasm of empathy between supporter and footballer to the benefit of neither.