Jon Bonet Ramsey

Jon Bonet Ramsey
July 24, 2004 -

Let me preface this “Brant” with a disclaimer.

First the views and opinions ya see here are just mine. Everyone else at 7M is sane and rational. Second, I think the death of any child is tragic and should be of the utmost concern of everyone, hence what you are about to read.

As is often the case, I was sitting at my favorite bar chugging my usual pitcher of iced tea, shooting the bull on a myriad of issues when the topic of Jon Bonet Ramsey came up. Few things in life set me off like this story.

Everyone talks about how tragic her death was. Was it her parents that bumped her off or her brother? Did someone break in? If they did, how come no one in the house heard her as she was raped and murdered in the basement? To all of which I say:

Who the hell cares?

Like I said, I think the death of any child is tragedy. I like kids. It’s adults I can’t stand.

How many children died that day in America? How many where beaten or maimed or sexually abused? How many went to bed hungry or cold or sick? Just on the day Jon Bonet died.

Thousands! Did you ever hear anything about them? Nope!

And yet for months all we heard about was some little girl that came from a well-to-do family. Her future was going to be much like her youth. She was going to grow up do more beauty pageants, because we need more beauty pageant contestants in the world.

She would go to high school, graduate maybe, go to college, and find herself some wealthy husband. Then she could have 4 names to remember, and if he was lucky, they would have sex sometime and have kids, as long as it didn’t hurt her figure.

In short, the death of Jon Bonet wasn’t a loss to anyone except maybe the car dealer that would have sold her father the new, fully loaded Mustang she was going to get for her 16th birthday.

Why is the death of some wealthy little white girl in the burbs more newsworthy than some kid in the inner city?

In fairness, my attitude isn’t really against the over-privileged. I hope to be one someday. It isn’t even against Jon Bonet. It’s against the media that drilled this story about a bunch of sick, vapid people and their spoiled children into our TV day in and day out.

Honestly, after months of never-ending coverage, my only emotional response was that it was one less snotty beauty queen in the world that was going to look down her nose at me in revulsion someday and laugh as I asked her out for a date.

But the press was struck by the tragedy, Mader.

No it wasn’t. If empathy is what drives the media then why don’t we hear the individual stories of every child that suffers everyday? Why don’t we hear about the child of migrant farm workers that dies crossing the Rio Grande? There is a list of stories a mile long dealing with children and yet no one seems to care.

Truth is, most people in the media are lazy. It was an easy story to cover. It was in a nice location with good hotels. The players involved fit a nice story line. The police were pretty good at coughing up sound bites that played well. It was a story that took no effort.

It wasn’t just the reporters that used it either. When it was a slow news day, the producers and editors could fall back on the story to fill paper columns or airtime. Why waste time covering the mutilation of some child in Chicago or rural Nebraska when you already have all the raw footage and background facts you need on the Ramsey story to fill space?

Unpleasant, but true. How many children died not only the same day as Jon Bonet but everyday after that? And yet you never heard a peep. There was no room, because she filled it? Or the story was dumped to the back page someplace, because Jon Bonet was such a crucial story it had to lead?

I know, I’m cynical, but next time someone brings up that story to you, ask yourself if you give a crap and if you do - why? I think if you’re honest with yourself you will be surprised by the answer.

Later,
Mader