On the Derrylin arson victim Diane Gossett's posthumous outing (and what it says about our local media)

On international Women's day its nice to see the local press still keeping the flag flying for misogyny, showing that not only has it not gone anywhere but that it has evolved to meet the demands of the 21st century.

And.....?

Page 3 of today's Irish News has some very weird content in a article about a family that have died in an arson attack in Derrylin that’s made the local papers. Specifically taking a prurient interest in the artistic activities of the 19 year old daughter of the family having been a fan-artist and banging on about for 4 paragraphs of copy and an extended caption when it was totally unrelated to the incident, or we'd have to assume so since its just dropped in the middle of the article without comment along with some other random negative details of the families lifestyle. One might charitably assume that they're trying to humanise the victims of a terrible act of violence, but it doesn't quite feel that way. "Details have emerged" of what exactly? That she had a hobby? To me that just looks like rubber necking at best and victim-blaming at worst.

What does this have to do with anything? Answers on a postcard

In this the Irish News seem to have taken their lead from an article in yesterdays Belfast Telegraph which was specifically about this. No other subject, just this. As if this is even a thing that is in the public interest to know. Her brother and mother both died in the fire, yet the BelTel haven't devoted column inches to what they did with their down time. Was Edward Gossett into five-a-side football? Philately? Warhammer 40k? Where's the article about his pass-times?

Also, the PSNI have the guy that did it in custody, surely there's enough in the public sphere that the actual motivations behind this are apparent or at least get-able with a bit of effort?

Of course that would require time and effort, why do that when you can facebook-stalk the victims for juicy shit from behind your desk when you're pretending to work. Also, this is a part of a general pattern of behaviour by the BelTel, who have been involved in outing BDSM practitioners in the past, operate at least one sock-puppet account on Fetlife as well as indulging other types of Mrs Grundy-ism. This is part of a downward spiral in local journalism. I don't seem to recall all three of the locals being as seedy, tabloid-y and generally as shit as their current incarnations even ten years ago. The economic incentive towards lazy attention-grabbing clickbait is very real. I know that print journalism is dying on its arse these days but surely they can do better than kink-shaming murder victims.

The BelTel article is by far the worst offender, making an inordinate deal out of the fact that an erotic picture comes up right after one that Diane did based on her infant daughter (who also lost her life in the fire) on the timeline of the website hosting her art, like a complete n00b. Its a timeline, pictures come up chronologically, that's how it works.

There's quite a large sub-culture of people, mostly young women, who do this sort of artwork. There's a whole community of producers and consumers of it out there. For some it leads on to actual work as an artist, but even for those for whom it doesn't its still a healthy and enjoyable outlet for their sexual and creative impulses.

So-fucking-what if this young woman in her spare time, drew some dirty cartoons? Good. More power to her, I hope that it brought her some pleasure in the short time that she had on this earth. She sold a few? Good. Even better. Any of us involved in the creative arts should be so lucky as to get paid for our work.

The Gossetts extended family have set up a go-fund-me page to cover the costs associated with bringing their relatives back to England for burial. If you'd like to do something useful you can chip a few quid in towards it:  https://www.gofundme.com/help-me-collect-my-familys-remains

Review: The Steven Nolan Show 09/10/2013

The Nolan Show is occasionally capable of some of the worst examples of local journalism.  The episode earlier this year where they covered the flag protest should live in infamy.  Inviting a crowd of sectarian bigots who had actually scared off a lot of the people who had ordered their tickets because you don't want an empty studio was ill considered at best and calculated irresponsible sensationalism at worst.  The show does from time to time throw up the odd surprise.

Tonights episode was something else.

They took on the abortion issue and the ambiguities in the law here by talking to the family of a woman who found out that the foetus she was carrying basically didn't have a head and wouldn't live long after the birth and the amount of shit that she and her family have been through. He had the Womans mother on the panel, Rosie Ward from the Christian Medical Centre on the other chair towing the fundamentalist Christian party line, Bernie Smith of anti choice group Precious Life in the audience, Goretti Horgan from Alliance For Choice and Breedagh Hughes from the royal college of midwives making an appearance by satellite. Nolan himself, who was definitely on the right side of this one, was chairing the whole thing as usual and let the facts speak for themselves without letting his ego get in the way of the debate, which made a nice change.

It made the family's dilemma quite clear and it also exposed the inhuman hateful attitudes of Precious Life to a T. Some of it was brutal, both in good and bad ways. Smith got a complete rinsing from Nolan and the mother of the woman, she was basically made to admit that she would force a woman against her will to carry a foetus that was going to die to full term and when presented with the Womans account of being harassed outside a FPA centre by her own activists she refused to condemn their behaviour. Its that sort of thing that has the potential to actually shift people on this issue.

I also noticed that That last chap to speak from the floor on tonights Nolan Show IS actually one of those creepy anti-choice people that stand outside the FPA on Shaftsbury square. I pass there going to work all the time and I recognise his face. The pictures they use of "aborted Fetus" as part of their scare tactics aren't taken from abortions at all, they are actually miscarriages.  Precious Life seem to have clocked that this one didn't go at all well for them and seem to be shitting themselves, and are actually calling for a campaign against the Nolan Show on twitter now.  Good.  Picketing people who are emotionally distressed isn't cool, even people I know who would be quite anti abortion are disgusted by their actions, something Nolan seemed happy to call Smith on.  Seeing the mother of the victim of that behaviour confronting Bernie Smith is probably going to be my TV highlight of the year.

Goretti played an absolute blinder explaining the political realities of the situation but wasn't on it for long enough.  The woman who was on representing the Royal College of midwives called the current legislative guidance from the NI assembly around abortion and the legalities of the women who travel to Britain to get it done "intimidatory and threatening".

There were a few niggles, but it was extremely well done. If you haven't seen it catch it on iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03cc1jz/The_Nolan_Show_Series_3_Episode_10/