I'm all for freedom, but --- Nowadays, this is the opening thought to many an article I contemplate writing because the grey area about what should, and should not, be published appears to be expanding all the time.
The boundaries are being pushed back, and not only due to journalistic invasions of privacy in the name of press freedom. Broadcasters are becoming intensely intrusive too.
Take, for instance, the decision by the US television network Lifetime to make a TV movie about the murder of Meredith Kercher, the British student stabbed to death in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.
Three people were convicted of the killing - Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito and Kercher's American flatmate, Amanda Knox. Some lawyers and journalists, especially in Knox's own country, have argued that the police investigation was heavily flawed. Some also think the trial to have been a travesty.
There are plenty of people who argue the opposite, and some even believe the waging of the campaign on behalf of Knox has been a disgrace (example: Libby Purves in The Times).
On a visit to Perugia a couple of years ago, for a journalism conference, I found that Italian lawyers and journalists were also split. Some thought the police had handled it very poorly; others were not troubled at all.
Anyway, without needing to take sides (and I've been unable to make up my own mind based on the analyses I have read), there is clearly enough continuing controversy to warrant further serious journalistic inquiries.
But I hardly think a TV movie qualifies as being serious or, in the circumstances, appropriate. I admit I haven't seen it, but from all I've read, it strikes me as extremely tasteless.
According to today's Sunday Telegraph, one "gruesome scene" has already been cut from the movie, Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy, before its debut tomorrow.
It evidently portrayed a half-naked Kercher screaming for her life while being stabbed to death by her three killers.
No wonder Kercher's family have protested at the "horrific and distressing" spectacle, which has already been screened in trailers for the film.
They are likely to be just as outraged at what has been left in. The final cut, reports the Telegraph, "still includes a scene in which Guede... watches in panic as blood pours from a wound to Miss Kercher's neck."
Given that Knox is currently appealing against her 26-year sentence, it is unsurprising that her family and lawyers have also protested against the film being shown.
The Telegraph reporter, Nick Squires, does point out that the made-for-TV movie "intelligently recreates the events leading up to the murder... and explores the many unanswered questions in the case."
He also reports that the producers "include evidence... that points to the couple's possible innocence", with much of the dialogue having been lifted from evidence presented at the trial.
It concludes that "there is reasonable doubt that they were the killers."
Fair enough. Maybe there is doubt. And I accept that broadcasters should be free to explore such doubts. But a TV movie - a fictional genre - using horrific images is surely not the best way to go about the task.
By the way, the film may be shown in Britain too. Lifetime is said to be "in talks" with Channel 5. That's the broadcaster owned by Richard Desmond, publisher of papers that libelled Madeleine McCann's family. Surely, he's far too sensitive a person to allow his TV executives to screen such a grisly movie?
Source: Sunday Telegraph
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/feb/20/meredithkercher-amanda-knox
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