The "Ipswich Ripper"

Reading news items about the Ipswich serial killer, I'm disgusted that even the so-called "real" newspapers - The Guardian, Times, Telegraph, etc - post items about the man arrested for the crimes. They link his MySpace blog, photos, hobbies and so on, like he's some kind of weird monster. Yet this man hasn't even been charged of a crime, let alone found guilty. Even more, he may be suffering from profound grief at having lost his friends at the hands of a murderer.

Do these newspaper editors not understand that? Can't they grasp just how horrendous it must be to not only lose friends and loved ones at the hands of a killer, but be accused of their murders at the same time? How more ghastly a way could a person's grief be compounded?

Today, we read that a second man has been taken into custody. Now we know that, for certain, at least one of the men is innocent. And yet the item remains about the "loner" and his "bizarre ways". Pictures of the guy holding a tin of custard assure us, apparently, that the man is so bizarre he's a serial killer. He wears tight trousers, we're informed. His father lives in a £360,000 cottage. He likes "Hong Kong Phooey"

How the hell is this effective and intelligent news reporting? The man is a suspect for the murders! Is this information meant to show us what clever detectives we are, with some kind of pseudo character profiling nonsense?

Is it any wonder people are crazy in this world when The Media is so irrational itself?

Maybe this man, Tom Stephens, is a serial killer. If so, he deserves every bit of ridicule and punishment he gets. But as it is, absolutely nothing on his MySpace page, nor in his interviews, says he's anything more or less than an ordinary, lonely and sad man. But The Media has pandered to the gossipping classes, and to the dark cloak of Rumour.

If he isn't, the actions of these so called newspapers will have messed this man's life up in ways that were entirely uneccesary and uncalled for. The editors should be ashamed of themselves.

As it happens, I have personal knowledge of some "weird" behaviours of a certain newspaper editor myself. I could write them here, now, but I won't. Truth is, everybody's pretty weird when it comes down to it.