United Kingdom: A nation obsessed with death

India Knight

The Times

“When did it become acceptable” to put “explicitly gruesome footage” on newspaper websites? asked India Knight. Not only are we now showing pictures of dead people on the front pages of newspapers—which not long ago was considered disrespectful of the dead and lacking in taste—but we are also linking to videos of people being killed.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Last week’s tragic tale of the little Chinese girl run over twice and left to die—why did that story need accompanying video footage? And “who presses play?” Even worse were the images of Libya’s ousted dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, begging for his life as he is beaten and kicked. “He’s about to die! He’s all bloodied! Pause, rewind, freeze-frame—it’s all yours!” If you went to The Guardian’s website, this snuff film started playing automatically. Even children were exposed. I had to confiscate the newspapers before my 7-year-old child got up so she wouldn’t be traumatized by Qaddafi’s dead staring eyes haunting the front page of every paper we get.

“There is such a thing as too much information, and last week showed that we’re drowning in it—drowning in our own voyeurism, drowning in ghoulishness, drowning in other people’s blood.”