THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510200017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
While moving swiftly through the checkout aisle in the grocery store recently, I suddenly spotted it in blazing yellow among the other scandal-screaming headlines on the rack: ``Nicole and Ron Murder Photos - 3 Pages of Crime Scene Pix Only the Jury Has Seen!''
Thanks to some dark, depraved, inquiring force within my midbrain, that newspaper was in my shopping cart next to the Tuna Helper and Cheerios faster than you could mutter, ``The Juice is Loose.''
So much for the cheap thrill of impulsive curiosity-gorging. Ever since carrying those photos home with me, I have felt ashamed of myself. For $1.29 and the chance to pore over a few grotesque, indecently publicized photos that have no business being anywhere but in the memory banks of 12 Los Angeles jurors, I feel I have personally stooped to an all-time low - if not as an individual, then most certainly as a consumer in the marketplace.
How could I actually allow myself to be suckered in, by a segment of the press I have never respected, simply to satisfy my own morbid curiosity this way? By plunking my money down for this paper, I fully supported the ruthless tactics these publications routinely use to peddle inhumane pictorials of other people's dead relatives and exploit survivors week after week.
We're actually snatching up this stuff and buying it!
A cold and compassionless breed of animal we so-called sophisticates of the `90s have turned out to be. If it's bloody, brutal and buyable, can count on us to drop the cash to see it. Until, that is, we consider that it could very well be our own parents, siblings and offspring on those pages. Suddenly, it's an entirely different story.
We're swiftly becoming a nation of trashmongers. And as long as we're in the market for trash, trash is exactly what they're going to furnish us with. As long as we keep buying, we're telling these publishers to please give us more.
I have had enough trash connected to this tragedy in California. I'm not going to foolishly waste another penny on it.
DEBORAH PATNAUDE
Norfolk, Oct. 12, 1995 by CNB