The Mail leads today with the headline “Was this another Lee Rigby attack?”, referring to the attempted kidnap of a serving officer at RAF Marham. Think about that headline again. I won’t repeat it, but think about it again. If you were the journalist concerned, would you have given a thought to Lee Rigby’s family? Why drag up his name again? Haven’t the family suffered enough?
There could be similarities between the cases. I get that, of course. We know very few facts yet, perhaps more will come to light later on. But couldn’t the Mail have simply reported the facts that are known without drawing parallels with the past? No. It’s the Mail. As long as it sells newspapers, they have no conscience. The Mirror on its online edition was little better, mind you, running much the same headline. Poor taste is not entirely the province of extreme right wing newspapers.
In this instance, and it must be said in many others, the Mail is little better than Britain First. Politically, they are virtually singing from the same song sheet, that is the level to which the British press has descended. Britain First exploited Lee Rigby and rightly got condemned, not least by his family. The Mail deserves no less discredit.
Can’t we do better than each new mass murderer being the new Jack the Ripper, each terrorist victim being the next Lee Rigby? I see it as thoughtless journalism. These people are writing for the benefit of millions of readers and the odds are that Fusilier Rigby’s family see the headlines. Imagine walking into your local shop and seeing your murdered son’s name splashed across the papers day by day. It’s as if they are prolonging the agony.
Lee Rigby was a real person, not some kind of C list celebrity normally splashed on the Mail’s pages. His family are ordinary folk whose lives have been ruined. When writing headlines such as these, could the newspaper not have the slightest twang of conscience? The answer is, sadly, no.
