It's just a TV show

A social worker on CNN just described performing grief counseling for people who did not know Laci Peterson. "Those in the community who came to know her through the media and need to process their grief can now take the first step in the healing process," said the social worker (paraphrased). Huh? Community? Healing?

As a member of the media, I've come to wonder why stories like Peterson's get so much play. I do think it's important that domestic violence is recognized in the press every once in awhile, but it's very hard to say why one case merits mass hysteria while another becomes a City Confidential and little more. It does seem like the most widely publicized murder cases usually involve good-looking white people. In this case, the victim's pregnancy made it more heartbreaking, although I find most media outlets' decision to refer to the unborn child by name vulgar and bizarre. I know that rule number one for most media outlets is, "if it bleeds, it leads," but I can't help but think that the past two years of coverage have been sadly wasted time. (This wasn't even O.J. killing his ex-wife.) Mostly I'm happy that this case will occupy significantly fewer column-inches soon. Good riddance.

"The fact is," writes Thomas de Zengotita in an abstract piece about ordinary people and celebrities in the December Harper's, "that a lot of people who have not had some problematic condition thrust upon them by fate feel as if they have. They feel alone and misunderstood... unacknowledged, unappreciated. So they identify with a saga of redemption through recognition, which transforms the anonymous victim into the heroic survivor. They respond projectively with something that borders on envy."