The murder of Sarah Everard | Couzens sentenced to a whole-life order

Just listening to the news and a lady is complaining that she believes if she reported a shoplifter she'd get a quicker response than if she said she'd been raped. Knowing that's factually incorrect why is this type of thing finding its way on the national news and helping spread more misinformation?
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56567387

The family of a student from west London who has been missing for a week say they are becoming increasingly worried about his safety.
Richard Okorogheye, 19, has been shielding throughout the coronavirus pandemic because he has sickle cell disease, which affects how red blood cells work in the body.
His mother, Evidence Joel, said he left the family home in the Ladbroke Grove area on 22 March.
He said he was going to see a friend.
Ms Joel, a nurse, said she returned home from work at about 21:00 GMT and assumed her son - who had only been leaving the house for his regular blood transfusions - was back home and in his bedroom.
But Richard has not been seen since, and he did not take his wallet, bus pass or bank card with him.
Ms Joel said her son, who has also in the past been known to frequent the Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham areas, had been "struggling to cope" with his university course.
He is in the first year of a business and IT degree at Oxford Brookes.
The Met said it was "following every lead possible" to find the teenager; speaking with witnesses and examining CCTV.
Click to expand...

Not about Sarah Everard, but a young black student has been missing for over a week now.
 
TheReligion said:
I don't disagree. I'm sure they'll be no candle light vigils either.
Click to expand...

If middle class white women are going to be subject to police violence for holding a candle lit vigil, I can’t imagine young black males are going to fare much better.
 
Pexbo said:
If middle class white women are going to be subject to police violence for holding a candle lit vigil, I can’t imagine young black males are going to fare much better.
Click to expand...

As I say I'd wager there won't be a candle lit vigil in this instance.
 
unchanged_lineup said:
To be fair, I've seen the same amount of coverage in my social media sphere for both. The Sarah Everard one totally exploded everywhere when it became known that a serving police officer did it.
Click to expand...


Exactly. That sort of thing is massive news. What are the figures on people disappearing every year?
 
Grinner said:
Exactly. That sort of thing is massive news. What are the figures on people disappearing every year?
Click to expand...
golden_blunder said:
The police are meant to be protectors not the psychopaths.
Click to expand...
That's not strictly true.

The Sarah Everard case was fairly big before the suspect was known to be an officer.

There was quite an extensive social media awareness campaign to get the message out there that she's missing and asking people to come in with more information. The case obviously blew up when a police officer was arrested.

There hasn't been the same level of exposure as with Richard Okorogheye.
 
The Corinthian said:
That's not strictly true.

The Sarah Everard case was fairly big before the suspect was known to be an officer.

There was quite an extensive social media awareness campaign to get the message out there that she's missing and asking people to come in with more information. The case obviously blew up when a police officer was arrested.

There hasn't been the same level of exposure as with Richard Okorogheye.
Click to expand...
How come the ones that are missing for a week and turn up later are never on the news? One assumes a journo has done their job and worked out what’s gonna be big news.
 
The Corinthian said:
That's not strictly true.

The Sarah Everard case was fairly big before the suspect was known to be an officer.

There was quite an extensive social media awareness campaign to get the message out there that she's missing and asking people to come in with more information. The case obviously blew up when a police officer was arrested.

There hasn't been the same level of exposure as with Richard Okorogheye.
Click to expand...

What I'm saying though is that I've seen the same folks in my social media sharing it. Might be different from what you see, but it's looks about the same on mine to be honest.
 
golden_blunder said:
How come the ones that are missing for a week and turn up later are never on the news? One assumes a journo has done their job and worked out what’s gonna be big news.
Click to expand...


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.de...ws/massive-search-missing-33-year-5237838.amp

A lad who is brother of a friend of mine, and someone himself who is a customer in my pub, has been missing for two weeks now and aside from the local rag and lots of Facebook posts, I don't think I've seen anything about it at all. It's not looking good, especially given some of the evidence etc, but still, just putting it in to perspective about coverage in the news. There must be thousands a week, hundreds at least that we never hear about.
 
golden_blunder said:
How come the ones that are missing for a week and turn up later are never on the news? One assumes a journo has done their job and worked out what’s gonna be big news.
Click to expand...
Sorry, not entirely following you here.

Are you saying a journo will know if a missing person will be found alive or not and report accordingly?
 
langster said:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.de...ws/massive-search-missing-33-year-5237838.amp

A lad who is brother of a friend of mine, and someone himself who is a customer in my pub, has been missing for two weeks now and aside from the local rag and lots of Facebook posts, I don't think I've seen anything about it at all. It's not looking good, especially given some of the evidence etc, but still, just putting it in to perspective about coverage in the news. There must be thousands a week, hundreds at least that we never hear about.
Click to expand...

Sadly, when these end badly they invariably turn out to be suicides. Which are less newsworthy than a kidnap/murder as the public crave scare stories about bogey men. A mental health crisis just doesn’t tick the same boxes.
 
TheReligion said:
@Pexbo

Not sure you'd seen this
Click to expand...

giphy.gif
 
unchanged_lineup said:
To be fair, I've seen the same amount of coverage in my social media sphere for both. The Sarah Everard one totally exploded everywhere when it became known that a serving police officer did it.
Click to expand...
Grinner said:
Exactly. That sort of thing is massive news. What are the figures on people disappearing every year?
Click to expand...
Just not true and I fear will be the narrative when people look back on her case.

She was all over the news before the officer was discovered.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Sadly, when these end badly they invariably turn out to be suicides. Which are less newsworthy than a kidnap/murder as the public crave scare stories about bogey men. A mental health crisis just doesn’t tick the same boxes.
Click to expand...


You're spot on. Sadly I think the Police are just waiting for a body to turn up. The fact his clothes and phone were found in a spot where they spread their mothers ashes says to me it's more likely a suicide. I'm not a detective though.

I was just highlighting how many disappearances there are each week though. And although many may be suicides, there might not be the evidence at first, so they might not be treated as such by the police and media.
 
The Corinthian said:
Sorry, not entirely following you here.

Are you saying a journo will know if a missing person will be found alive or not and report accordingly?
Click to expand...
No one can ever be certain off course.

but some stories, for whatever reason make the cut. I think that some of them already have an edge about them, making a journo investigate. Otherwise why wouldn’t they all make the news or on the flip side none of them?
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Just not true and I fear will be the narrative when people look back on her case.

She was all over the news before the officer was discovered.
Click to expand...

I mean, are you saying that what I'm seeing on my personal feeds is not true? That's all I'm saying here, no judgement or proclamation either way. This is how I'm perceiving it. I saw huge media stories after the police rumours began, but social media shares well before that. Same folks I'm seeing sharing the latest story too.
 
unchanged_lineup said:
I mean, are you saying that what I'm seeing on my personal feeds is not true? That's all I'm saying here, no judgement or proclamation either way. This is how I'm perceiving it. I saw huge media stories after the police rumours began, but social media shares well before that. Same folks I'm seeing sharing the latest story too.
Click to expand...
Not to discount your personal experience on Facebook but I'd say the vast majority of people had way more exposure to the Sarah Everard story than this one, even when it was in its infancy.
 
Harry Harries said:
Not to discount your personal experience on Facebook but I'd say the vast majority of people had way more exposure to the Sarah Everard story than this one, even when it was in its infancy.
Click to expand...

You're right that there's been far less media coverage of the Richard Okorogheye case. A few days after his disappearance, Richard's story was just about spreading across London media. In the same time frame Sarah's disappearance was a major story in every paper around the country (and also small regional papers), from the Sun to the Independent, on all the main news channels, Sky, BBC, ITV etc. And clearly that will have a knock on effect on social media (no one is going to talk about it if they don't know about it). The big question is why the disparity in reporting?
 
Prophet_of_Doom said:
You're right that there's been far less media coverage of the Richard Okorogheye case. A few days after his disappearance, Richard's story was just about spreading across London media. In the same time frame Sarah's disappearance was a major story in every paper around the country (and also small regional papers), from the Sun to the Independent, on all the main news channels, Sky, BBC, ITV etc. And clearly that will have a knock on effect on social media (no one is going to talk about it if they don't know about it). The big question is why the disparity in reporting?
Click to expand...
I'm not really clued up but like others have mentioned it seems to be the case that when a man goes missing it tends to be suicide/mental health related which doesn't get as much traction as a women going missing potentially as a result of kidnapping. I guess with women that potential is always there in the event of them going missing (before it was public knowledge that Sarah was kidnapped) whereas for men it's way less likely. Maybe the fact she's young, middle class and white had some influence in getting her story circulating in the press.
 
golden_blunder said:
No one can ever be certain off course.

but some stories, for whatever reason make the cut. I think that some of them already have an edge about them, making a journo investigate. Otherwise why wouldn’t they all make the news or on the flip side none of them?
Click to expand...
I'm quite cynical about what does / doesn't make it in the media & press. I think we're long gone from objective reporting and it's mainly sensationalist headlines, and click bait stories.

Anyway, a story of a missing white woman is going to make more headlines than a missing black male. I do think 'missing white woman syndrome' is a thing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
 
hobbers said:
As a thought experiment...

All law-abiding men indoors after dark.

All non law-abiding men continue doing whatever they like. Now with even less of a deterrent.

Genius.
Click to expand...

So let’s never ever even think about changes that could improve society...

Genius!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.