So I was doing my usual scan of the news when this came up - One woman's worth (Rose Warne - ABC)
It's about why the media goes insane over one specific person's death and seems to make sure that no one cares about anyone else who may have died in a similar circumstance. In this case, it's Jill Meagher (Wikipedia) versus Tracy Connelly. (Claire Jansen - Lipmag)
It's a common theme around great tragedies - baying for blood when a white young female is kidnapped/assaulted/murdered but remaining silent when a young woman of colour/different sexuality/nationality suffers the same. Many men are outraged that no one seems to care as much either when a bloke is killed in awful circumstances.
Hard truth is - there are way too many murders for everyone to share the spotlight equally. No, it's not right but it would be impossible to do no matter how good your intentions are. You'd spend more time speaking about death than being able to do anything about it.
So back to the article - it asks us why Jill had so much media exposure while Tracy did not. It asks why Tracy was labelled with 'prostitute' and 'sex worker' before mentioning afterwards what happened. The headline tells us all we could ever want to know about her. She's not a full fleshed out person, she's a warning for other girls to stay off the streets, a sordid mark on Melbourne's streets.
