Monday, September 18, 2006

Kids in the paper.

Yesterday, I got up very early, went for a run and came back towards my home via the local shop. So far so Sunday. But as I picked up a carton of orange juice and the papers, one cover caught my eye.
I was shocked to discover the deep reserves of hatred I still have for that tabloid toiletpaper, The Sunday World, Ireland's answer to every other jumped up hand wringing gutter sniping filth rag.
On the cover was a slighty blurry photo of some young girl out celebrating her results on Wednesday night. She was drunk as a lord, half dressed, snogging the face off her boyfriend. Her dress was hitched up half way around her hips and the boyfriend has his whole hand down her kickers and was very busily trying to see is he could reach her kidneys.
As a photo it was kind of gross, it was kind of disgusting, it kind of proves my point about worrying behaviour from the other day, but most of all it was a very graphic photo and it SHOULDN"T BE SPLASHED ALL ACROSS THE COVER OF A NEWSPAPER!
The girl had a tiny black bar across her eyes to 'protect her identity'and the paper had oh so kindly hidden the bulk of the guy's hand action with one of those 'ohhh don't look, this is a family paper' stickers over the girl's crotch(which somehow makes it worse). But no matter, that girl will be very identifiable to her classmates and friends, people who know her, her parents, (if I was that girl and it was my mother I would be typing this from Russia) and her school.
It's possible nothing will come out of it. It is equally possible she might be in serious trouble at home, expelled from school and mocked and ridiculed by her classmates for doing probably what half the blooomin' teenager in this country were doing that night.
I don't approve of all this crazy drunkeness and falling around the streets, especially in 14/15 year old kids. But neither do I approve of newspapers gleefully swooping like vultures and picking over the remains of poor decision making.
Fifteen year olds are not adults, they are not fair game, they make mistakes and learn-if they're lucky-from them. Complain about their behaviour or not, but it is not fair to single one out, photograph her in a compromising positions and then splash it across the front page for all the world to see.
But then I don't expect anything better from papers like The Sunday World, from the gutter everything must seem like fair game.

21 Comments:

Blogger Dr Maroon said...

If the girl and boy are minors and can be identified, I would have thought they would have recourse to the Irish Courts.
Photos are hellish. One taken 2 seconds after the one you’re talking about could have been quite totally different. The press in Britain are as bad, they often used to carry stories about sexual attacks on women right next to pictures of topless models. That book “The Shipping News” explains it well. The editor and the owner both tell him that it’s always car wrecks and child molestation stories on the front cover, because that sell papers.
I was also thinking of what my friends and I were like at that young age. We were as carnal as this modern lot but perhaps not as public. I’m blushing thinking about it. Christ we took some risks.

9:47 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

We all did Docky, but we were allowed some leeway and a chance to grow out of our more hormonally driven actions. What the Sunday World did is disgusting and typical of a rag trying to flog papers. They could still have run their story without the photo.

10:10 a.m.  
Blogger FINN said...

you wish the media would act responsibly, and with prudence?? oh cat ... you will be a great mum.

12:37 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

I know it's not likey to happen any time soon Finn, but I can't help feeling sorry for that girl. Can you imagine if she went into school today and that photo has already done the rounds? You know how teenage girls are...she will be mortified.

12:50 p.m.  
Blogger Betty the Sheep said...

Tabloids are complete rags but the sad truth is that they keep printing trash because the public keeps buying it.

1:43 p.m.  
Blogger MommyHeadache said...

You're right again, FMC, I reckon celebs have all that's coming to them, but printing pictures of fifteen year old gals out on the razzle showing their knickers, is just mean and cruel, and the reason I no longer buy such rags even though they are, alas, spectacular entertainment.

1:54 p.m.  
Blogger Kim Ayres said...

My guess is it's the daughter of someone the editor wants his revenge on.

2:04 p.m.  
Blogger SheBah said...

" Her dress was hitched up half way around her hips and the boyfriend has his whole hand down her kickers and was very busily trying to see is he could reach her kidneys."
Jeez, FMC, that is so evocative, it brings me right back to my newly 17 year old self in the back seat of a car in Glencree car park, madly in love for the first time. That first experience of uncompleted passion and raging hormones (everything except penetration as we had to stay virgins!). What a shame we have to grow up and get sensible and guarded!

3:45 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

I don't buy tabloids either because I refuse to give them a cent of my money.
I doubt it Kim, but you never know. Ireland is a small country.

Right Shebah, now imagine if someone photographed your acrobatics and splashed them all across the paper? You'd be destroyed.
Although that virgin comment just made me laugh out loud. All of us boarding school gals were complete hussies, but most careful with our virtue. We'd get up to all sorts, but no mickeys were allowed though the pearly gates and girls that did were complete sluts whom we looked down upon and were in awe of all at the same time.

4:05 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Ain't it though. Twink's ferocious message she left for her ex-husband recently has dragged it right back up to my frontal lobes again. The way she spits 'ah zip up yer micky ya fookin' dickhead' had me in stitches.

6:47 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

NVAN NON SLEEPY! I asked a velly velly gud frind of mine who works in the industry about rerasonable hotel and he said he would be very happy to recommend the Camden Deluxe Hotel
http://reservations.bookhostels.com/eventsoftheweek.com/hostel.php?HostelNumber=9965.
he reckons it is very good for travellers on a budget. Naturally you can go more up scale, but Camden Street is a busy cheery street about five minutes walk to the Stephen's green and Grafton Street. It has some great pups, Whelans, and the Bleeding Horse and it's a stone throw from Rathmines and Portobello. I know it to be a good area, so have a look a the page and see what you think.

7:14 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

7:15 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

NVAN NON SLEEPY! I asked a velly velly gud frind of mine who works in the industry about rerasonable hotel and he said he would be very happy to recommend the Camden Deluxe Hotel
http://reservations.bookhostels.com/eventsoftheweek.com/hostel.php?HostelNumber=9965.
he reckons it is very good for travellers on a budget. Naturally you can go more up scale, but Camden Street is a busy cheery street about five minutes walk to the Stephen's green and Grafton Street. It has some great pups, Whelans, and the Bleeding Horse and it's a stone throw from Rathmines and Portobello. I know it to be a good area, so have a look a the page and see what you think.

7:16 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think u just lost the plot there FMC. I used to sell the sunday papers outside a small catholic church on the glen rd in Belfast. U get immune to the shite they print after a while but the Sunday Sport was a classic.

11:44 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Welcome Del, I'm sure you do become immune after a while, but I thought this cover shot was particularly low.

8:19 a.m.  
Blogger Sam, Problem-Child-Bride said...

Bloody hell! I've just been to see the Sunday World picture. That IS some kinda drunk. I worry the wee lassie might have caught a chill in her bladder out there in the windy thoroughfare. The boy is clearly no gentleman.

My analysis differs from yours a bit though fmc: I couldn't see ANY skirt.

It looks like a right rag though - the paper that is, not the skirt.

8:30 a.m.  
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