Sorry, Kevin, I don't believe this (that the audience would all defect). There were other interesting stories.

Shorter Kevin:
People are stupid.

Why do you hate America, Kevin?

i don't listen 24/7, but i'm happy that i didn't hear a single word about this on NPR.

spellcheck

But this is the same excuse that CNN could use to justify intense coverage of Monica Lewinsky, etc.

To a large extent, I think Kevin's right. But the public isn't going to start caring less about the latest celebrity couple or some random cute white girl unless we, the American people realize there are more important issues and we should pay more attention to them. I think the media has a very important role in helping with that process.

I ranted about this from day one. It was a local event, and it occured ten years ago. It was creepy then to see that little girl sexualized and tarted up,and it is just as disquieting now.

It is pretty telling when Geraldo is the only "journalist" to express doubt before the charges were dropped.

Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did.

Absolutely wrong Kevin. The coverage of Karr was just a excuse by the liberal media to not cover Bush's brilliant speech in New Orleans. The liberal media knows if they did cover it, Bush would expose how it was really the fault of the the liberal democrats Blanco and Nagin that so much damage was caused in New Orleans. So they decided to cover Karr instead of Bush in order to cover up Bush's brilliant speech.

Give them bread and circuses. I was going to slam the corporate media on this but I've heard 3 stories in the last 24 hours about this on the BBC.

Al, shush.

I second Joe Buck's observation. I think that even before he was not shown to be innocent, a lot of people were complaining about "JMK 24/7", inclusing me. Any news channel that would have just treated it as a normal, minor story (you know, like genocides in Darfur :-( ) would have earned a lot of clout with a lot of people.

I was at a bar/restaurant where they had CNN on during lunch. For about 5 minutes before his initial hearing, they were showing a split screen of what looked like a lighted ceiling on one side and a building on the other (presumably where he was going to have the hearing). That made for some rivetting viewing, if you also enjoy International Paint Drying Comeptitions.

Kevin is right. The most popular news story on many online news services over the weekend was the one about the girl in Austria who apparently was kidnapped as a child. In fact it's still one of the most popular stories today, although it's dropped off a little bit. Personally I'm tired of hearing about it and I wish the media would move on already, but clearly that is what the market wants, so why not give it to them?

Al is right!

The media don't want to let everyone see what a FABULOUS JOB Bush has done to rebuild NOLA!

Great Job, Bushie!

If we're gong to bash the media, let's at least pick a topic where the media itself is more to blame than we are ourselves.

I scarcely know where to start. How 'bout Iraq?

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.”
Gore Vidal

One more pathetic little psychotic desperately craving the spotlight, saying whatever it takes to get there. We only reward them by speaking their names.

Thus, henceforth:

Viagra Fats
Sham Sanity
A. Cultwhore

If President Bush had the cojones to speak on national TV on this topic and say, in effect, "you people are ignorant," I might actually gain some respect for the man although I heartily disagree with at least 90 percent of his policies.

Of course, W is such a poll-driven character that him actually uttering such comments is about as likely as Indiana and Wake Forest meeting in the BCS title game next January.

Hey but that 24/7 coverage about the murder of an exploited little white girl 10 years ago sure took the cameras away from all that murder and chaos and anarchy in Iraq now didn't it?

Mission accomplished.

A longtime MSNBC watcher, I actually switched to CNN a few days ago because MSNBC would Not. Shut. Up. about JonBenet.

The sad thing is the JBR coverage wiped out any coverage of President Bush's admission that Saddam was not connected to 9-11.

As someone who changed the channel everytime this story came on, I'd have to disagree. I really don't know anyone who cared one bit about who killed Jon Benet.

I'll admit, that when I first heard they caught someone, I was happy to know it. But only in the obscene hope that that would be the end of the story.

I can understand a bit of coverage, but there is no excuse for the 12 times as much coverage for this case as for Judge Taylor's finding that Bush broke the law. And there is an audience out there for non-sensational news, non-reality shows, and non-conservative talking heads.

What is most disquieting is that the public obsession with Karr is almost as creepy as his obsession with little girls. Maybe it's not quite like looking into a mirror and seeing something really monstrous looking back, but it's close.

In fairness to the media, although they overdid it for sure, most did raise doubts about whether he was the culprit pretty early on. At least they retained that much objectivity. The other thing that we now know is that there was "foreign" DNA of a white male in her little panties. Maybe we can now give her parents a media reprieve. Too bad mom is already dead.

It is pretty telling when Geraldo is the only "journalist" to express doubt before the charges were dropped.

I would say that several legal experts/journalists did express doubts about this almost as soon as he was arrested. Dan Abrams on MSNBC for one.

When the only evidence against him is his own lunatic claim that "I was there", it's hard to take it too seriously. OTOH, carton-a-day smoker Rita Cosby seemed downright desperate to keep the story going. She seems to be the one to cover all these non-national newstories that have zero effect on 99.9999% of the country.

I want to echo what Cleek said. I am a constant NPR/PBS listener. I can recall hearing only one story on that topic. I some how doubt that its audience defect[ed] en masse, Kevin.

I dunno about this. I think this may be one of those cases where the public is ahead of those who are paid to understand what the public wants.

I certainly defected en seul to media that didn't feature the story.

I don't know Kevin, on the afternoon of August 20th NPR was breathlessly reporting what Karr was eating and drinking in Thailand or on the plane back to the US or sitting in the airport - not sure which. I didn't get all the details because I tuned it out. The complaint, an accurate one I think, is that the coverage was lurid and over the top.

The next time I'm overseas and facing the horror of flying back to the US coach I'm going to confess to killing the Lindbergh baby so I can get flown back business class. :-)

The media had to cover Karr because otherwise they would have had to deal with the news that a Federal Judge had ruled that President Bush had ordered unconstitutional acts and had injoined the government from continuing those warrentless wiretap programs. Karr was either a godsend for Bush or a red herring kept on Karl Rove's rolidex for panic situations. Knowing this administration I'm willing to believe they had Karr lined up and ready for just this situation.

I'm am grateful that the name John Mark Karr was unknown to me and that cable TV is optional.

People read things they can identify with.

Jennifer got dumped? Hey, I've been dumped, I feel sorry for her.

A little girl got kidnapped? Shit, I would go nuts if my daughter got kidnapped. That must be awful.

Gas prices are sky high? No kidding, tell me more about it.

A Shi'ite militia is gunning people down in a land far, far away that I can't find on a map and have never seen in a movie? Uh, i guess that sucks and all, but...

I'm empathetic to Kevin's argument.

I pretty much stopped watching the news entirely during the OJ Simpson trial. I was clearly not their target audience, but a lot of people were. I think OJ ranks as the second or third most watched media event of the 90s.

I suspect that the viewership on the JMK coverage wasn't all that good; if it had been there wouldn't be much belly-aching about it.

I will leave it to the Daily Show's excellent coverage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKwCxUUbVrE

I believe this all started w/ Lindburg's baby. The media realized how much mass the homo sapien's lust for juicy gossip sells. It's been that way ever since.

You know what's even more ridiculous?

Some of the yakkers jumped on the JMK story to cluck about how the press had unfairly convicted poor, dead Patsy Ramsey, and weren't they all ashamed now that the REAL killer had been found.

How on earth can you walk that one back?

All you anecdotal people who changed the channel when the story came on really aren't representative. It's easy enough to find TV ratings online these days (try TVNewser.com), and facts are facts - that stupid story brought in twice the viewers as, say, Iraq.

Kevin is exactly right here: "Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did."

It is pretty telling when Geraldo is the only "journalist" to express doubt before the charges were dropped.

I call bullshit. ALL I heard after the initial 'OMG! they caught some guy!' was a lot of analysis about how they'd BETTER get a DNA match or they're toast. And they were right. The news nets may have gone wall to wall with it, but the analysis was dead on.

The Prairie Angel

I say f all the cable nazis who covered this story to death. I sure as hell didn't care to hear about it. I'd much rather hear about what the grinning illiterate is doing to wreck the world.

Huh??? Hubby & I Tivo everything we watch, and we fast-forwarded through the JMK stuff just as quickly and efficiently as we do through the commercials, the blather about TomKat, American Idol and all the other brainless pap.

Ten years ago, the first JonBenet feeding frenzy revealed something a little sicker and darker than usual about the American psyche.

Since then, apparently our Media has learned that there is nothing like the banality of evil to get the American public to pant and swoon, so long as nobody in the ruling class gets hurt by it.

We may be a "modern democracy" but in terms of our corporate news media, we're still back in feudal times.

Here are a few stories that need to be covered every day before covering JMK:

- This fall's elections without one bit of reporting on mudslinging.
- Iraq
- Iran
- Afghanistan
- Kurdistan
- Israel
- Guantanamo
- New Orleans (local, state and federal failures)
- The Pentagon
- NSA
- Supreme Court
- CIA
- Corruption in {your local government}.
- Corruption in Federal Department of {select from all}.
- Corruption in {your state}.
- Compare the results of {your local elected official} with the promises he made when elected.
- Bad movies.
- Bad actors.
- Good movies.
- Good actors.
- Tony Awards.
- Book reviews.
- etc.

No, no! Any news story on JMK had to state that he was under investigation, not indicted, not convicted. To follow that with "...yet" is a valid editorial choice. But that's it. Anything else is speculation and anticipation.

And any broadcaster or editor who consciously chose to divert time and resources from other stories to focus more on JMK for fear of losing viewers was dead wrong. People will watch the most gripping story, and if you can't make Iraq/Lebannon/New Orleans/Lamont/Afghanastan/etc. more gripping than wondering about Joe "Creepy Eyes" McGee, then you are a bad broadcaster/editor. What's shocking is how many of them are so bad.

Don't fall for the circular logic: People watch what's on, if JMK is all that's on, that's what they'll watch. You can't turn the causality back and say the viewership justifies the editors' obsession. Many of us turned off the set entirely (just like the OJ days, the Princess Di days, the Monica days, the Condit days...) and only come back once the news fills back up with information and vareity.

KD:Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did. Any media star that ignored the story would have seen the public stampede to a competitor who was covering it.

bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. and once again bullshit. do you know how hard i had to work to avoid hearing anything about this? and i still know what the fuck happened!

this is the excuse that stupid lazy media exec tell themselves to keep doing the same stupid lazy things. oooooh a pretty white lady went missing, crank up the Nancy Grace machine. oh oh oh, there've been three shark attacks in the last month it must be "summer of the shark" then all the media jumps on the bandwagon, and blames US for not having anything else to watch.

maybe, just maybe, if the MSM were as hyped up and sound-and-graphics package outraged about shit that actually mattered, they'd find out that we'd watch that, given the chance.

{sorry for the rant, i feel better now. i thank you for your indulgence}

It served the Republican'ts well.

(Why don't the dems all start using the word Republican'ts for the members of the GOP?)

Media idiocy? Try the latest headline I came across from the AP:
Bodies with torture marks found in Iraq-- By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
45 minutes ago
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's another news flash: water is wet.

Who's "we" kemosabe? I make it a habit of going out of my way to avoid stories like this. Hasn't made any difference so far.

Sure news outlets were mainly responding to public interest.

But that doesn't change the fact that it was all sensationalistic hysteria and vastly overblown even if everything had turned out true, namely JMK had been the perpetrator.

What makes it so very embarrassing for the media is to be caught pandering to the basest instincts of the public because it all turned out to be so damn false and fabricated. I mean, how crass and brainless do they look now? One sick little dude led them around by their noses and made them all look like complete fools.

It's a little like the WMD fiasco in Iraq, you know?

brent: People will watch the most gripping story, and if you can't make Iraq/Lebannon/New Orleans/Lamont/Afghanastan/etc. more gripping than wondering about Joe "Creepy Eyes" McGee, then you are a bad broadcaster/editor. What's shocking is how many of them are so bad.

see, that's the sane way to say what i was trying to say.

It's funny liberals get their panties in a knot when the MSM focuses too much time on white girl/white women news stories. Yet, when the media is actively engaged in faking news, the liberals have nothing to say. Quite telling.

I respectfully disagree. The last thing I wanted to watch was endlessly dragged-out bs about this guy and a ten-year-old murder case. It was a case of pandering to the lowest common denominator, pure and simple. And the constant replay of those tapes of that 6 year old prancing around with make up and high heels must have kept every pedophile glued to his TV.

"What makes it so very embarrassing for the media is to be caught pandering to the basest instincts of the public because it all turned out to be so damn false and fabricated."

As opposed to news organization fabricating the stories themselves? The MSM is indeed a joke now.

If we're going to bash the media, let's at least pick a topic where the media itself is more to blame than we are ourselves.

--Katrina coverage last year

--Lebanon coverage this year

"--Katrina coverage last year

--Lebanon coverage this year"

Don't forget all the "fake, but accurate" exposes!

BULLSHIT!
I and many others would have "flocked" to any station NOT covering JMK, I wanted to see the NEWS!!!

oooooh a pretty white lady went missing, crank up the Nancy Grace machine

I despise Nancy Grace, but in her defense it should be noted that she called bullshit on Karr's claim early on. And so did I. At the moment the announcement was made, I told my wife the guy was a lying kook. But then I'm one of those who believes the real killer died a few months ago.

As a quick and general summary of the issue, I believe Kevin is right.

However, when you dig into the details of the coverage, you can distinguish between say The New York Times which gave some but not wall-to-wall coverage of the issue, and Fox News which so sensationalized the coverage by running with, among other things, a "handwriting expert" who claimed to be 99.9999% certain that Karr wrote the murder note.

"Yet, when the media is actively engaged in faking news, the liberals have nothing to say."

You're right, it was shameful how nobody spoke up when the New York Times and Washington Post were telling us that we had to invade Iraq because of their weapons of mass destruction.

A few people did protest when the New York Times beat the Whitewater drum for eight years - a real estate deal where the Clintons actually lost money. But not enough to keep him from being impeached.

When the New York Times headlines told us that Chinese spies were stealing secrets from Los Alamos, you think somebody might have raised questions, but no.

You're right. Liberals don't speak up enough when the news is fabricated.

You're right, it was shameful how nobody spoke up when the New York Times and Washington Post were telling us that we had to invade Iraq because of their weapons of mass destruction.

There's getting it wrong, and there's faking it. Learn the difference.

I work at a newspaper. We did not put the Karr stuff on the front page.

But, almost every major newspaper in the country did. The Poynter website had example after example of papers with this lurid tale splashed across the top of their pages.

So it wasn't only TV that went overboard on this. Newspapers don't have the sheer volume that TV does, but still... there it was.

If Kevin is serious in this post, I disagree. I think honest, graphic, forthright coverage of what's going on in Iraq would be a ratings winner every time. Harder work, more dangerous work to cover Iraq than JMK, but work that would produce news more interesting by far than watching an average-looking white murder suspect take a plane ride to Colorado from Thailand. Part of the news media's job is to show and tell the news that is most important in a way that makes it interesting to readers, listeners, and viewers. Most of the time, it turns out that the news that is most important is easiest to tell in a way that makes it interesting simply because the stories are so much bigger. The media contorts itself when it buries the big news (Iraq) and focuses on trivia like the Karr story.

MSNBC makes news.
Fast, convenient, filling. Not necessarily good for you.

McDonalds makes hamburgers.
Fast, convenient, filling. Not necessarily good for you.

Unfortunately, the FCC has allowed MSNBC and its co-colluders to eliminate all other dining options.

Gore said something about newsmedia consolidation yesterday. Fuck; I had to rely on Matt Fucking Drudge to feed me this bit of news. Everyone else? Liberal Blogosphere? zzzzzzzzz.

Today, I can't even find a Link to Gore's statements on Google.

Heck all the JMK/JBR attention was the perfect time for the Bush Admin to make another move on us.

Gotta disagree with you Kevin, I had to go cold turkey on my CNN addiction because I could believe at the attention this guy was getting - and obviously getting off on.

Who is this "we", white man? I didn't watch any Jon whatsherface coverage, not then and not now. But then, I don't rely on TV for my "news", since TV is incapable of covering the news.

But that's just me, a mean old elitist.

The sad thing is the JBR coverage wiped out any coverage of President Bush's admission that Saddam was not connected to 9-11.

Wow! How'd that happen?
Gonna have to get me one a them newfangled TV's one of these days.

Reprobate:I despise Nancy Grace, but in her defense it should be noted that she called bullshit on Karr's claim early on.

a couple of points, 1) when i wrote "Nancy Grace machine" i meant more globally the pseudo-legalistic speculation that surrounds most missing persons-of-interest and/or murders. they all irritate me regardless of network affiliation. mostly because they're all talking out of their asses before anyone knows anything.
but sometimes speculation is accurate.

2) if you despise NG, why watch her enough to know what she says?

The whole thing smacked of a Ramsey PR blitz. Anyone familiar with the case has to be very cynical of Ramsey-fed exculpating data. Long before I learned what a Blog was, the Ramseys had PR people decimating the CNN message boards anytime someone brought up inconvenient facts in the case. The note for example almost had to have been a Patsy invention, and this Karr fellow would have had to have been her confederate to have written it. The media even concocted the yearbook thing to make it seem plausible. Remember that? SBTC my ass! Sheez.. Al and Charlie on this board are very much like the first generation trolls encountered on CNN. I had never seen the like and was incensed. Rove would be proud. So, if you knew anything about the case, you knew this was subterfuge. Is anyone going to be filmed dropping a new note on Patsy's grave? Like, Oops! nevermind! The DA and most of what is left of Boulder's police are not objective in this. I look at justice there as having been for sale. Lin Wood et al have choked the airwaves from the start to spread the notion of a exoneration for the Ramseys. Very GOP-like. Truth is not important if you stay on message. The media eats out of the hands of the GOP. THAT is the interesting part of the coverage to me. Steve Thomas' s book is the definitive work on the case for those interested. The MSM was not truly knowledgable or interested. Yet they kept talking to people with a vested interest or outright on the pay roll instead of examining the case and its obvious conclusions. It was horrid journalism covering a fake story for the benefit of the wealthy. Nothing new in that.

I'm sure that the media "borg" will be going nuts tripping over themselves to cover JMK's charges over child porn in California.
America's Least Wanted

The fault (deere Brutus) is not in our Starres,
But in our Selues, that we are vnderlings.

That's Cassius to Brutus whom he is attempting to subvert and corrupt by denying the natural order of the universe, understood popularly as being governed by the stars. Brutus falls for it because he's a pompous old dullard and it speaks to his egotism and snobbery.

Sparko, That key just above the shift key is used to put paragraph breaks in text.

It wasn't easy to maintain one's ignorance of the whole Karr thing. You had to actively work at it. Thank god I didn't have to travel through the Atlanta airport, where it would have been on all those damn TVs tuned to CNN with the volume too loud, 24/7.

Hell, I defected from the news channels the minute this Karr-Ramsey story popped up! I knew the story would get worked 24/7 and there would be no REAL news as long as this story was active. There's precious little real news on the news channels to begin with and a "sensational" story knocks out whatever would have accidently appeared instead. Thank god for the Internet and blogs, which keep the world in much better focus than the news channels do!

I'm glad to see at least two others had the same "What do you mean WE, kemosabe?" reaction I did.

There's a presumption that the public wants to see this trash coverage en masse -- but that presumption is never tested by someone ignoring the story. And even if you can prove the cable networks' ratings spike a bit -- as they allegedly did during the interminable year of Lewinsky -- you're still talking about a jump in viewership from pitiful to miniscule: cable audiences are a minute portion of the American public.

It reminds me of when Princess Diana was killed and, initially, paparazzi were being blamed. People lectured us that we were all at fault, because we read the tabloids that published their photos. Then the information came out that only about 5% of Americans actually did so. Forgive me if I won't shoulder the blame for this small group of idiots.

I also have to agree: much of the coverage I did see -- mostly on Olbermann -- was skeptical on Karr pretty much from day two, if not quite day one.

I have assiduously avoided following the case from the beginning, so I certainly can't attest to the accuracy of Sparko's conspiratorial-sounding rant about a Ramsey-driven spin assault. I can't dismiss it, either, though.

I think what's going on has more to do with the really unwholesome psychological dymanics going on the case. There's a furious amount of projection, identification and denial from all interested parties.

First of all, JonBenet goes beyond your usual white-girl-in-jep story. She was tarted up and paraded around like a six-year-old hooker by upper-middle-class parents, The world of toddler beauty contests is legal crack -- legitimated child erotica.

This is both horrible and seductive. How could solid citizens put their children through this? Apparently JonBenet (such a pretentious pseudo-Frenchification of Daddy's name) was a real trooper about it. She *enjoyed* it. It brought she and Mommy closer together. Sometimes I get the feeling, John Q Public, that you've lost your faith in Sparkle Motion.

There's a huge need to purge this from the national psyche, to find a conventionally demonizable adult male perpetrator -- to get the suspicion out of the orbit of the family. You don't need a Ramsey-instigated plot to imagine why middle class people simply can't abide the meme that their cultural assumptions prey on the innocent.

Bob

Yes, shame on us. But SHAME on journalism for NOT CLEANING UP ITS ACT. Gaurdians of Democracy! B.S.! More like Bread and Circus without the bread.

Could commercial sponsors be punished if they buy add time during a news-porn outbreak?

I said this in the comments of another blog, but it bears repeating: the newsmedia is doing an incredibly crap job right now at their mission, if you believe that said mission is to inform and illumintate their audience (and incidentally, to be a goad and gadfly to those in power, whoever they are). That being said, any news source who is so soulless and ratings-craven that they couldn't leave the JBR story in the pages of the New York Post and National Enquirer where it belongs doesn't have the right to say one f***ing word about anyone trusting the Daily Show to give them the news.

the anchorman was in high dudgeon about how badly the media screwed up by giving so much attention to John Mark Karr.

Can somebody explain to me where this anchorman was when the hoopla was going on? Mighty brave of him to speak out when it's all over.

Let him condemn the next American attack of "Janet Jackson's tit hysteria" while it's happening, then I'll be impressed.

Sure news outlets were mainly responding to public interest.

But that doesn't change the fact that it was all sensationalistic hysteria and vastly overblown even if everything had turned out true, namely JMK had been the perpetrator.

Hey, it's "giving the people what they want"...but what if the people are wrong?

Hmm...so what's more annoying about this case: the media's nonstop coverage of it or the Perspective Police's nonstop complaints of how Other Things Are Much More Important?

I tend to think that the JonBenet Ramsey case, in addition to simply being one of the most fascinating and horrible crimes of recent memory, tells us a lot about our culture and thus is worth following. In many ways, it's more relevant to people's lives that the latest body count from Iraq.

At the very least, it's no less important than sports, movies, literature, theater, blogging, and all the other ways Americans spend thier time when they could be doing Something More Important.

kevin are you saying the free market isn't giving the consumer exactly what it wants and needs?

I think everyone else has already said it, but everyone I know couldn't care less about this story. This story was total media hype from day #1. As a matter of fact, whenever this story came on my local news, CNN, MSNBC, etc...I immediately changed the channel.

I assume there must be tens of millions out there interested in true crime stories and that I (nor my colleagues) are not among them...after all, Jerry Springer still pulls in enough of an audience to keep on going...

And while I'm on this rant (I usually don't post to comment boards), I can't stand CNN.com these days...I used to check the site at least once a day for my news, but it has turned extremely tabloid as of late...When a "top news" item is a story about a father accidentally mowing off his daughter's leg (listed as I write this), I get very disheartened.

I also enjoy when a "top news" item turns out to be an OpEd piece by Lou Dobbs about the "Outsourcing of America". For one, this is not news, it's opinion...And two, Lou railing against offshoring is nothing new!

I think everyone else has already said it, but everyone I know couldn't care less about this story.

Perhaps they do care somewhat, but deny it due to the social stigma of following "unimportant" news stories?

Please. The brother killed her, the family wote the bogus note to cover, and the father "discovered" her body alone in the basement like he knew exactly where it was. Karr was a distraction for the masses, trotted out on queue to focus attention aweay from the magicians other hand.

Presto, you got screwed again!

"i don't listen 24/7, but i'm happy that i didn't hear a single word about this on NPR."

I heard a reasonable amount of coverage on NPR (which is to say not much but more than none).

>I think everyone else has already said it, but >everyone I know couldn't care less about this >story.
>
>Perhaps they do care somewhat, but deny it due >to the social stigma of following "unimportant" >news stories?

Do I think people are interested in this story? Of course I do...Half the comments in this thread are people dissecting the evidence, theories, etc...

One of the (extremely) few points where I agree with the Limbaugh's of the world is the fact that the news outlets due themselves an extreme dissservice by *leading* with this story and even breaking into other coverage with "breaking news" that Karr is being flown to the US in business class....are you kidding me?

This is *tabloid* news...this is *entertainment*...this will have zero effect on people's lives and there is zero educational value in this reporting...

By covering stories of a tabloid nature, news outlets push more and more people to other avenues to get thier news...whether it is this blog, Rush Limbaugh (god forbid) or The Daily Show.

It would be nice if, in these discussions, it would also be pointed out that this kind of behavior is a direct consequence of news-for-profit.

This is *tabloid* news...this is *entertainment*...this will have zero effect on people's lives and there is zero educational value in this reporting...

True, but then again that's also the case with most "important" news as well. Even major events like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have had no direct impact on my life.

I was despeerately turning AWAY from the coverage....but even NPR joined in- I was tempted to write them a nastygram for doing so.
But I didn't - guess its MY fault.

Does anyone actually have evidence that ratings go up because of this stuff? It seems like a big assumption that more people will watch a newscast containing 100% this story than one with a scattering of other stories. I know the big corps keep doing it, and that they're not stupid. But I can't really believe that a channel or paper draws more attentive eyes by focusing exclusively on one story, no matter how lurid. I'd really like to see data and unbiased estimates of the effect on viewership, if anyone knows where.

"I am a constant NPR/PBS listener."

I gave up on those two during the run-up to Iraq. I hope that they've become more informative and less propagandistic by now. Unfortunately, I don't rely anymore on any major US media to get anything more than noise.

JF: One of the (extremely) few points where I agree with the Limbaugh's of the world is the fact that the news outlets due themselves an extreme dissservice by *leading* with this story and even breaking into other coverage with "breaking news" that Karr is being flown to the US in business class....are you kidding me?

that's what made me so furious, and has now made me so annoyed that the same media are trying to blame the Boulder prosecutors for even issuing the arrest warrant in the first place. ok, maybe i could see a 2 min story about this guy, w/ quote from a press conference etc. but all the mob scene hysteria was uncalled for. and none of it, NONE OF IT, qualified as "breaking news".

I dunno.

If I'd found a network that wasn't leading with Karr, I'd have watched it.

And people wonder why I get so goddamned indignant at the popularity of Madonna :)

I dunno. On one hand, as a former cultural studies major, the fascination of this case is a no brainer. We see li'l JonBenet parading around with a Shirley Temple smile in six-year-old slutwear.

We are simultaneously attracted and repulsed. The cognitive dissonance is immense, and must be resolved. So when an undoubtedly creepy (and perfectly typecast) pedophile shows up (an elementary school teacher slumming in Bankok -- paging Mr. Garrison!) and mouth-breathes some noise about an asphyxiophilia fetish getting a little out of hand -- well, how could you *not* jump on it?

It'd be like asking a pedophile to keep his tainted fingers off of JonBenet Ramsey in one of her charming li'l outfits.

On the other hand, it's tabloid news, it's spoon-fed to us and we watch it, and ultimately the direct result of a profit-driven, ratings-obsessed news culture. We have Freedom of Choice(tm)! Chicken or Burger? Would you like a napkin?

Bob

The media is the message.

Whatever the telly shows you, it's not going to inform you, and it probably won't make you a better citizen.

Most of you probably already know that whatever they're saying, it's not true. I mean, if you wanted to know something, you wouldn't say "Well, I guess I'll go turn on the telly and learn it there".

Ok, so there's one born every minute and a few of you still think you're going to learn a foreign language, understand Proust, or be posted on late-breaking foreign news when you watch television. Well, television's been around for quite a while, and we can start to accept the fact that there are some things it just will never do.

Given the evidence that watching actually makes you dumber, I don't understand why anyone watches at all.

the fact that you could type "slutwear" and "six-year-old" really makes me wonder about what you think you see when you watch the loop of JonBenet in rhinestone cowboy outfit.

"We are simultaneously attracted and repulsed" no we here. no attraction. sorrow, bewilderment, confusion as to why anyone thought this was worth all the attention.

I am a constant NPR/PBS listener. I can recall hearing only one story on that topic.

Yeah, but that's only because NPR was busy doing stories on what the demotion of Pluto means to astrologists....

Seriously, they did.

Recommended reading.

Was Howie trashing the irresponsible, hysterical mega coverage of Jonbenet the FIRST time around? If so, he can bitch now. But he still has to account for his own pathetic performance for the last several years pimping for the Bush Administration. He's a thoroughly discredited jackass.

"Color me confused" - Kevin

You can say that on many other issues as well.

"Look. Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did." - Kevin

Only those that enjoy watching train wrecks. Anybody that is not completely nauseated by the Jon Bonet case REALLY needs to get a life.

I think you are both wrong and right here Kevin.

There is a market for this sensational gossip story.

Where you are wrong is in sounding like those who said there was no market for Air America radio or that Donahue would be a flop on MSNBC. I think that if a responsable , left of center 24 hour news channel that avoided sensationalism, could get on cable, like Fox, they would have a very large viewership and blow away CNN and MSNBC.

As well as exposing the misdeeds of the Bush Administration to people who don't use the internet or read newspapers.

>True, but then again that's also the case with >most "important" news as well. Even major >events like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have had >no direct impact on my life.

I guess you haven't travelled on an airplane since 9/11? No changes in screening since?

Both events had huge impacts on the direction this country decides to go. It provides "educational value" in determining what priorities we should place on infrastructure, national security, etc...

The Karr / Ramsey news story (loosely defined) will have zero impact on anything. I liken it to any story having to do with Tom Cruise. It's an entertainment (once again...loosely defined)story at best and should be reported as such.

If the major news outlets want to cater primarily to the entertainment crowd, they do so at thier own peril. With all of the different media out there, people will find a way to get the real news...I'm just worried that people will turn to a Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter as thier primary source...that's entertainment news of different (and more dangerous) strain...

e1:

> the fact that you could type "slutwear" and "six-year-old"
> really makes me wonder about what you think you see when
> you watch the loop of JonBenet in rhinestone cowboy outfit.

I've never seen it, nor any video images of JBR, and the few stills
that I no doubt must've seen I can't recall in any detail. The
only time I watch TV news at all is when my buddies come over and
we flip on Fox to laugh at O'Reilly, Kasich and Hannity, oh my!

But the way you phrase this is fascinating, and makes precisely
my point. There are few perps that Americans revile more than
pederasts (and rightly so), yet everybody -- even righteous pure-
news devotees like yourself -- is fascinated, fascinated, fascinated
by the alleged mental processes of alleged perverts. It's the
same thing that drove all the relentless Michael Jackson coverage.

It's not a question of "what I think" (although for the record
I'll state that I find sexualized imagery of children beyond
repulsive on multiple levels). It's an objective fact that
pedophiles find exotically-clothed children highly erotic.

Now I'm not going to argue the pornographic content of kiddle beauty
contests, save to metion the NYT piece two weeks about about the
"child modelling" websites that sold access to suggestive pictures
of children barely out of diapers, on the dubious assumption that
clothed = legal. These beauty contests are even more pernicious.

When you objectify a child -- reduce them to an image that can be
lined up with and compared to other child-images -- you destroy
innocence and stifle individuality right as it starts to develop.
One of the reasons the case is so fascinating -- and why so much
public opinion swung against the parents -- is because it revealed
the posh upper-middle-class netherworld of these contests and the
parents who so obsess over them. If a mother could so objectify
(and thus dehumanize) her daughter, why couldn't she also murder her?

> "We are simultaneously attracted and repulsed" no we here.
> no attraction. sorrow, bewilderment, confusion as to why
> anyone thought this was worth all the attention.

Well, when I spoke of "we," I mean news consumers who Kevin claims
drove the coverage, not necessarily aware blog reader types. And
by "attracted," I meant attracted to the lurid details, certainly
not a literal sexual attraction. There's definitely a "we" here --
even if not on this blog -- who wallows in the cognitive dissonace
of cute little girls in adorable costumes that provoke brutal murder.

There's a red-state world out there that wouldn't stop for a moment
to ponder the implications of kiddie beauty contests -- if a tabloid
murder story hadn't intervened. There's a rush of collective guilt
that our image-obsessed, materialist culture can drive parents to
make fetish-objects of their own children. We need to find the
perp here in and get closure in the worst way imaginable.

Because otherwise, the perpetrator is the culture itself.

Bob

Bob
There's a red-state world out there that wouldn't stop for a moment to ponder the implications of kiddie beauty contests -- if a tabloid murder story hadn't intervened.

The whole concept of child actors is not a red state-exclusive concept. In fact, I bet most of those Whatever Happened to So-And-So shows on "E!" where they find out the cute little kid from the sitcom turned into a drug-addled dumbass who was chewed up and spit out by that bluest of blue entities, Hollywood, were mostly from blue states themselves.

So save the sanctimonious red state/blue state BS. on this one.

Red State Mike:

What exactly do child actors have to do with kiddie beauty contests?

Had you ever even heard of a kiddie beauty contest before the JBR case?

Well, there was a whole teeming subculture of it. I'm not saying it's an exclusively red-state phenomenon. But I would bet dollars to donuts that it's most popular among wealthy social conservatives, because it so obviously reaffirms traditional sex roles.

Bob

What exactly do child actors have to do with kiddie beauty contests?

Just the whole "cute kids for the sake of adults" thing.

Had you ever even heard of a kiddie beauty contest before the JBR case?

Oh yeah. Old news. You hadn't?

Red State Mike:

There's nothing particularly "weird" or sexualized about the long tradition of child actors and performers (although I'm sure there were a few anecdotes from the days of vaudeville and the burlesque hall).

You've heard of beauty contests for six-year-olds before JBR?

Sheesh, you must, umm, live in a red state or something :)

*ducking*

Bob

Thom Hartmann notes:

... hours after the JonBenét information hit the press ... it was revealed that US District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor had ruled that George W. Bush and now-CIA Director Michael Hayden had committed multiple High Crimes, Misdemeanors, and felonies, both criminal and constitutional. If her ruling stands, Bush and Hayden could go to prison.

As Judge Taylor said in her "ACLU v. NSA" decision: "In this case, the President has acted, undisputedly, as FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] forbids."

When somebody acts "as FISA forbids," the law is pretty clear about the penalties ... when somebody - anybody - breaks the FISA law, they are subject to "a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both."

Further, in the case of a president or NSA director, the law specifies that federal agents and courts have the authority to arrest and prosecute: "There is Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section if the person committing the offense was an officer or employee of the United States at the time the offense was committed."

Judge Taylor went on to point out that Bush had not only broken the law, but that he had also violated the Constitution - which many legal scholars would suggest is clearly an impeachable offense.

[...]

But the media didn't notice. They were too busy with the story of the child-killer who had finally, after a decade, been found and captured [...] Think Progress went on to chronicle how much time the three big networks had devoted to the two stories that first night:

NBC - 7 minutes 39 seconds on the Ramsey story, only 27 seconds on the NSA

CBS - 3 minutes 23 seconds on the Ramsey story, only 25 seconds on the NSA

ABC - 4 minutes 3 seconds on the Ramsey story, only 2 minutes on the NSA

Within a few days, the story of the President being found guilty of both imprisonable felonies and impeachable violations of the Constitution had vanished from the mainstream media altogether.

More here.

SecularAnimist:

I dunno ... it might not've been such a bad thing in retrospect, when you consider some of the blistering attacks on the substance of that decision's reasoning by legal folks who otherwise are in full support of her conclusions.

It appears by all rights to've been a truly sloppily-reasoned opinion. Had there not been the JBR mini-mediathon, we might've seen more of the ad-hom attacks on the "activist judge" which littered the right-wing blogs ...

Sometimes media distractions can be a mixed blessing.

Bob

Any news channel that didn't cover JMK 24/7 would have seen its audience defect en masse to a channel that did.

Bullshit.

Hmm . . . instead of saying "the people" are stupid, or that they weren't watching, or that they were watching, try it this way: there are people who watch the news to be informed, and there are people who watch the news to be entertained--by trash or demagoguery. Forty years ago, no respectable newsroom would admit to pandering to the news-as-entertainment audience, because they were not considered respectable. Nowadays, respectability itself is sneered at and all the newsrooms pander. They sold their own ethics and respectabililty to reach that larger audience.

And that, dear Kevin, is why I no longer bother blaming George Bush for our ills. The fault, sadly, lies amongst our fellow citizens who put him in the job.

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The problem with this apology is that news coverage, especially on the cable channels, is highly redundant. There was nowhere near 24/7 worth of real information available on this, even if you did think it was the most important thing happening in the world. The networks expand the most sensational stories to Joycean detail so as to keep the public's gaze voyeuristically fixated. Any given network could have conveyed all the real info about this, and still had time to cover two or three other things that their competitors were not. The reason they do not is partly laziness and partly agenda.

Thanks for your contributions, Bob. Well said. Along with a number of others, I say the JonBenet case is important.

The media needs to look for its demons in her parents, not because they are suspects, but because they tarted the girl up to be a such a tasty little piece of child pornography on the hoof.

The public laps up the case because of the sublimated sexual component and also because she has been posthumously revealed to be some kind of star. Star murders in America get 24 hour coverage.

What else do the soulless, materialistic and success obsessed Americans have to do but find voyeuristic satisfaction in the misfortunes of others and the successes of heir own?

Ameliorate your boring lives and grab some reflected glory by getting your kids into a hot school, or perhaps winning a kiddy beauty contests.

Holbrooke is a guy with a ton of credibility. When he says that diplomacy has to be backed up by a credible threat of force, he obviously means it: he recommended military action twice in the Balkans during the 90s. At the same time, when he says it should be a last resort, he obviously means that too: he devoted uncounted thousands of hours to serious, toughminded diplomacy during the same period. Some of it worked and some of it didn't, but his dedication to the cause is hardly questionable.And despite his continued unwillingness to flatly face the reality that we can't afford to stay in Iraq any longer, he had by far the better of the argument when the subject turned to Iran. Diplomacy is not, he reminded Kristol, in and of itse

Bob-
It's not a question of "what I think" (although for the record I'll state that I find sexualized imagery of children beyond repulsive on multiple levels). It's an objective fact that pedophiles find exotically-clothed children highly erotic.

i'm sorry i couldn't respond to this earlier. the reason i wrote what you "think you see" is because in no objective sense is a six year old girl in a cowgirl outfit sexualized. it's the people who look at her who make her a sexualized object. for a six year old, a beauty pagent (if she enjoys it) is some kind of cross between dance class and dress up with REALLY COOL clothes, plus spending time with mom. there's nothing sexual about it. unless a person looks at her and thinks, "man, she looks like a slut" with all the attendant connotations on the word "slut."

what her mom got out of it, i won't speculate. but when someone uses the word "slutwear" to describe what she's wearing, then to me that person is looking at her as a sexual object.

you write a post about the fascination that "we" must have with the coverage, them claim never to have seen what she's wearing, while using the word "slutwear" to describe her clothes, then try to lay your words off as some kind of misunderstanding on my part. so i've offered my clarification.

the mindset of pedophiles is not an academic thing to me. i've seen it up close both in action and in effect in my job. and believe me, children can be sexualized in all kinds of ways, very few of which involve "exotic" clothes, make up, or hair spray.

Bob -

btw, i knew you meant attraction to the coverage, not attraction to her physically. i'm not sure if you saw my earlier posts, but i was trying to emphasize that i had tried to avoid the coverage itself (now and 10 years ago).

OT:
Bob - re: Judge Taylor's NSA decision - I'm not sure where you got the idea something about that reasoning in that decision was sloppy, but from what I can tell the only thing sloppy was DOJs defense of the NSA's practices and the orders that put them into use.
"It's legal 'cause the President said so."
"So you don't dispute claims of unconstitutionality or violations of FISA?"
"No."
"Motion to dismiss is denied; Unconstitituionality of programs and violations of FISA are undisputed."
Not much else that could be said, no?

Kevin, I'm really tired of the "just giving the people what they want" argument. Yes, there are a lot of people who would order scratch-and-sniff pay-per-view for this crap if it were available. There are a lot of people with too much creepy interest in too many creepy stories. And frankly, being obsessed with pedophiles is pretty much vicarious pedophilia.

But there are many other people who do want an alternative. Unfortunately, it's really easy for the lazy, cynical media to simply keep dishing out the same old crap, and justifying it with the "giving the people what they want" arguments, as if "the people" are one big mindless blob.

How about giving "the people" a choice?

Um, actually, CNN draws an average of between half a million to a million viewers. At some points during the day, even less than that. This would seem to leave a pretty large pool, over 200 million viewers, that are saying they don't want to watch, and from which a news outlet that doesn't go for the lowest common denominator could choose.

It's funny how the "tv news is only giving them what they want" folks fancy themselves counter-intuitive non-conventional thinkers, like Kevin. But, in truth, that's actually the incredibly conventional take. It's second rate, unimaginative thinking, and it's too bad it's shared by the heads of msnbc and cnn.

e1:

> i'm sorry i couldn't respond to this earlier. the reason I
> wrote what you "think you see" is because in no objective
> sense is a six year old girl in a cowgirl outfit sexualized.

In no "objective" sense is a naked adult body sexualized; ask any
gynecologist or urologist. There is in fact nothing whatsover
"objective" about the objects of sexual attraction. Some wag once
said that the most erogenous zone in the human body is the mind.

This is why context is so important. It's also why a string of
"child modelling" websites which charge $40 a pop for looks at
little girls with the handles "Sparkle" and "Lolly" dressed in
outfits ... oh, not that much less "innocent" than what JonBenet
was wearing, thought they could get away with doing this in the
US, because despite the crotch-heavy shots, they were fully clothed.

Yes, the definition of pornography is inherently slippery -- but ol'
Potter Stewart is still correct. Most people know it when they see it.

> it's the people who look at her who make her a sexualized object.

I would argue that this is extremely disingenuous. The
association that comes to *my* mind from a rhinestone
cowgirl outfit is the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

And we all know how innocent and asexual *they*
are, being displayed, after all, on primetime TV.

> for a six year old, a beauty pagent (if she enjoys it)
> is some kind of cross between dance class and dress up
> with REALLY COOL clothes, plus spending time with mom.
> there's nothing sexual about it.

Nobody said these contests held orgies afterward. Obviously they
couldn't exist at all if the little girls were *overtly* sexualized.
But you're really missing the point here. Sexuality isn't an on-off
reaction. Nor is sexuality completely separable from human beauty.
Sexual feelings also proceed on levels other than the conscious.

That's why I called these contests *legitimated* child erotica.

Ask a child psychologist about what kind of risks these little
girls undergo at the behest of their families during these
contests. There are, after all, many more losers than winners.

The danger here is for a child to identify -- at an extremely early
age so it becomes deeply imprinted -- their self-esteem with their
physical appearance. Anybody who deals with troubled teens knows
that this is one of biggest forces that drive kids into sexual
activity (to "prove their worth") before they're ready for it.

> unless a person looks at her and thinks, "man, she looks like
> a slut" with all the attendant connotations on the word "slut."

"Slut" here really isn't the point. These contests are, rather, a
gateway to sluthood. This isn't dress-up in Mommy's clothes, e1.
This isn't going to church, or First Communion, or being a flower
girl at a wedding, or even dressing up for a special birthday party.

This is a *competition* -- and it's a matter of severe rivalry
between the families, just as it is in cheerleading competitions.

Ever see one of the usual televised adult beauty contests when they
announce the winner? The runners-up look positively suicidal for
a moment or two. Now imagine the feelings of the kids who've lost.

> what her mom got out of it, i won't speculate.

Heh.

> but when someone uses the word "slutwear" to describe what she's
> wearing, then to me that person is looking at her as a sexual object.

"Slutwear" is a term of art, or a rhetorical exaggeration if you
prefer. They aren't dressed to mimic li'l hookers. But everyone
who's commented on the clothes has noted that the purpose of these
custom-designed outfits is to make the little girls look like
miniature adults. It's not like they're just modelling the kind
of child-appropriate outfits they might wear to some formal gathering
with adults present. And to the extent that this is successful,
it's going to make those inclined to fetish little girls that much
more aroused, because of the association of adult with sexual.

These contests are *pure crack* for pederasts. And that might
include, you know, an uncle or a neighbor or a teacher or a priest.

> you write a post about the fascination
> that "we" must have with the coverage,

There's a huge collective "we" out there that's fascinated with JBR.

> them claim never to have seen what she's wearing,

Why do I need to see what she's wearing?
I've read descriptions enough times.

> while using the word "slutwear" to describe her clothes,

In the metaphoric sense of "hey look at how incredibly cute I look."

> then try to lay your words off as some kind of misunderstanding
> on my part. so i've offered my clarification.

I don't think you really appreciate how pernicious and destructive
these contests are. I consider them a form of child abuse.

> the mindset of pedophiles is not an academic thing to me. i've
> seen it up close both in action and in effect in my job. and
> believe me, children can be sexualized in all kinds of ways,

Absolutely true. The Id, as Freud
famously said, is polymorphously perverse.

> very few of which involve "exotic" clothes, make up, or hair spray.

Only because these contests are tiny subculture
which was virtually unkown prior to the JRB case.

It isn't to say at all that "exotic" clothes, makeup
and hairspray don't do an extremely effective job of it.

Bob

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Bob-
The danger here is for a child to identify -- at an extremely early age so it becomes deeply imprinted -- their self-esteem with their physical appearance. Anybody who deals with troubled teens knows that this is one of biggest forces that drive kids into sexual activity (to "prove their worth") before they're ready for it.
guess what, i deal with troubled teens. and the families who make the teens troubled in the first place. and the messages about sex and self esteem come from far more subtle signals, far more pervasively than whether or not beauty pagents are involved. is there a correlation? i'm sure there is, b/c the same families who would already bind self esteem and beauty together might also be drawn to beauty pagent as validation. but you're giving the beauty pagent itself way to much influence.

Some wag once said that the most erogenous zone in the human body is the mind.
but i'm extremely disingenuous for saying it's the people who look at her (because of what they think when they do) who make her a sexualized object? a person sees a picture of a little girl in make up and a miniature evening gown. they may have reactions from "wtf were her parents thinking?" to "aww, isn't that adorable." if their reactions include the words "slut", "tart", "tramp", or synonyms then they're the ones sexualizing the image. they're the ones putting adult connotations onto a child. which is not to say that i think everyone who has that reaction is a pedophile, or potentially a pedophile.

The association that comes to *my* mind from a rhinestone cowgirl outfit is the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
hm, maybe if you say a picture or paid attention to the video of what she (and the rest of the girls) were wearing, you'd realize how completely different the outfit is from what the Cowboy cheerleaders wear. but, again, you're putting sexualized adult content on a 6 y/o body. which is why is wrote "what you THINK you SEE."

These contests are *pure crack* for pederasts. And that might include, you know, an uncle or a neighbor or a teacher or a priest.
the uncle, neighbor, teacher or priest (or most likely dad, brother or mom) doesn't need to waste time, money or energy participating in kiddie beauty pagents to sexualize a child. they have access to kids and are much, much more subtle about it. it WORKS AGAINST what they're trying to do to fetishize the child and dress her up in adult clothes and parade her around. if you want to molest a child you need access and secrecy. an overtly sexualized child draws attention and gets the cops called on you.

Only because these contests are tiny subculture which was virtually unkown prior to the JRB case.

It isn't to say at all that "exotic" clothes, makeup and hairspray don't do an extremely effective job of it.
no, it's to say: Pedophiles by definition are attracted to Children. not miniature adults. (whatever you've seen on L&O SVU notwithstanding) it's a power thing, a vulnerability thing, a "kids aren't threatening and i don't have to try as hard" thing, it's a control thing. the less they look like the age that the pedophile finds attractive, the less attractive they are.

"Slut" here really isn't the point. These contests are, rather, a gateway to sluthood... "Slutwear" is a term of art, or a rhetorical exaggeration if you prefer. They aren't dressed to mimic li'l hookers...In the metaphoric sense of "hey look at how incredibly cute I look."
i'm not even really sure how to begin with this. but.. so, you recognize that they're not dressed like hookers, yet say that the contests are a gateway to "sluthood" which is kind of like hooking but not gettng paid for it. then you say, well "slutwear" is just a metaphor for girls who think they look incredibly cute, and y'kno want to show off. cuz we can't have that, or else they'll turn into SLUTS! and they're six, so they've already got a really good grasp on what turns a man's head i'm sure.

what bothered me about your phraseology "six-year-old slutwear" enough to comment on it directly, and still bothers me even after all this explanation, is that there's no room for any other perspective. it seems that in your view kiddie beauty pagents turn little girls into sluts and/or make them fodder for pedophiles, period.

so here're my points: 1) there are many orders of magnitude more pedophiles out there who don't give a shit and never will about kiddie beauty pagents than those that do. 2) if you're of a mindset to sexualize a child you can do it pretty damn easy, no rhinestones needed {which is sad, but true} 3) maybe, just maybe there are some participants in these who do it, y'kno, for fun, kinda like there's cutthroat competition cheerleading and then there's cheerleading you do cuz you want to.

e1:

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I think our argument is really more about misapplied terminology than anything else; I don't think we have major disagreements on the psychology of objectification -- which is really the essential point in all of this. I don't, however, believe that these beauty contests are ever about "just for fun," and that's, I think, our most substantial remaining disagreement.

A couple quick points:

On the aetiology of objectification, I'd agree with you that child beauty contests are more a symptom than a cause, and that families are drawn to them to validate a mindset they had to begin with.

I completely agree with you about the relationship of child predators to these beauty contests. These contests assuredly aren't necessary to drive pederasts into doing or desiring what they do, nor do they, in themselves, necessarily increase the risk of child sexual abuse in any substantial way -- except to the extent that photographs of these contests get circulated in the child abuser underground, and I think there's a substantial chance of that. Certainly that Karr creature built an elaborate fantasy life around those images.

"Slutwear" was an extremely poorly-chosen term of rhetorical invective, and it's led to all sorts of misunderstandings. The eroticization of these children (and I mean "erotic" in the broad, Freudian sense) is a much more subtle process, which also involves preserving an aura of innocence. What these contests do is to present a pure realm of wish-fulfillment fantasy, where kids can live out their dreams of being grownups. That is, in fact, the tradeoff. We'll let the little girls pretend they're grownups by wearing custom-designed clothing that makes them look like grownups, in exchange for the kids behaving in ways the adults find charming. While on the surface wholly innocent, the psychological dynamics aren't all that different from pole-dancers in biker bars, as the same kind of transaction is made, only for money, not the fulfillment of a normal childhood wish. I do think this reinforces very bad behavioral control mechanisms involving transactions with authority figures.

Can you participate in these contests "just for fun?" Theoretically sure. Just like you can play the piano for fun, or twirl a baton for fun. But when they become competitions involving investments in time and money, when "family honor" is at stake, it raises the same issues as the little league coach who takes it all-too-seriously, or the tennis and skating parents. What makes it even more perverse is that the desired attainment -- to be crowned a beauty queen -- is ephemeral and subjective in a way that sports or musical talent isn't.

I do believe if these contests were more popular, you'd see more examples of dysfunction that can be traced back to them. Only that they're a tiny subculture can you claim that their effects are isolated from causes of most childhood and adolescent problems.

Bob

Bob-

i appreciate your response too.

But when they become competitions involving investments in time and money, when "family honor" is at stake, it raises the same issues as the little league coach who takes it all-too-seriously, or the tennis and skating parents.. While on the surface wholly innocent, the psychological dynamics aren't all that different from pole-dancers in biker bars, as the same kind of transaction is made, only for money, not the fulfillment of a normal childhood wish [parental approval].

for me it all comes back to family dynamics. the activity in question isn't the issue. the popularity of the activity in question isn't the issue. there's a continuum of parental ability from absolutely neglectful and abusive to able to meet all of a child's changing needs. somewhere on there is a range where a parent takes his/her child's activities too seriously and/or tries to live vicariously through the child, through to a parent who lets the child participate and is just happy as long as the kid is happy.

imo, no one activity is going to set a child down a path to dysfunction. have her pole dancing, if you will. it's a long series of things mostly related to how the family react to what she does and what they generally encourage and discourage in her. couple this with inconsistency in rules, parental substance abuse or untreated mental health issues, physical, emotional, verbal or sexual abuse, and any number of other factors, and now you've got a good chance your pagent girl turns into a stripper.

so, no i don't think that pagents, per se, are in any way related to the causes of "most childhood and adolescent problems." as i said before, i'm sure there's some sort of correlation between pagent participation and dysfunctional families, but i doubt that it's significant, or useful.

"Slutwear" was an extremely poorly-chosen term of rhetorical invective
whether we agree or not, i'd like to thank you for writing this. because it was that word in conjunction with her age that really startled me.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth:

Thanks once again for an excellent response. I'm coming back to this even though we've resolved nearly all of our disagreements simply because I remain extremely troubled by childhood beauty contests. Let me also say that my mom died of alcoholism when I was 13, so I'm unfortunately experienced in parental abuse and neglect from the inside.

First, let me quickly say that obviously the family is and will always be the key factor in childhood development. No arguments there. Solid, empathetic families can also steel kids to survive daunting environments, just as lackadasical, self-abosrbed families can produce dysfunctional children in the midst of plenty and ease. And there are of course a host of other factors including genetics, but I don't think anyone would seriously doubt that family dynamics would lead the list of influences on child development for good or ill.

Let me first say that I'm uneasy with virtually all forms of intensely-fought child competitions at an early age, including the time-honored spelling bee. I woudn't advocate banning nearly all of them, and I do see the good that can come out. I have nothing against little league, or piano, band or cheerleading competitions. I can live with child acting and legit modelling (the auditions for which are highly competitive). I certainly understand that the more intensive sports of tennis, figure skating, gymnastics, etc. demand an early start, because these sorts of athletes peak at a young age.

But they all make me uneasy, and not merely because of the legendary stage mother or rageaholic little league coach, or Tonya Harding's mom, etc. I wonder how much of childhood such an early focus on a single activity robs of these children -- especially the vast amount who discover, sometimes after their whole late childhood and adolescence, that they haven't got what it takes to make the cut. These are only questions, though. I don't have an answer -- and I'm also sure that there's a potential for these kids to gain a great deal of personal growth from these activities as well.

What I can't make myself capapble of abiding, though, are childhood beauty contests. I see them as entirely monstrous, the fit subject for a Gothic horror novel. First, it's impossible for me to believe that the judging could be fair, or the result of anything more than shameless politicking and influence-peddling among the parents. I can't imagine that children that young are developed enough to shine in any way that doesn't reflect pure potential -- and how can you rank-order the potentials of six-year-olds? While parents could certainly provide a cushioning environment for kids not chosen, I wonder just what it is about these parents that they'd need to have the singular adorability of their own children -- somethine every parent ardently believes of the ugliest child -- objectively sanctioned. What howling inner lack to they posses, what mind-boggling doubts of themselves as parents do they labor under, to need such external confirmation?

And they invest thousands of dollars (at least) in custom wardrobe, travel and registration fees (not to mention lost work time) to qualify for it.

I dunno, Elizabeth. I'd call this entire subculture pathological. As someone who deals therapeutically with young people, what do you think I'm either missing or overracting about?

Bob

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