Guardian report on Geraldine Newman murder

Ah. So rather than addressing DrSeuss's mistake, you want to have a pop at me? Brilliant.

I saw it. Nice change from your original dismissive response.

DrSeuss, I said this last night at 22:08 - maybe it doesn't show up on your screen, so I'll put it again;

If there is an error in the article, it is one of omission. They could and should have included one for anyone worried about a violent or unhinged partner.

By that I meant women's aid, or other such organisations . Please let me know if you can see it now.

I think putting the Women's Aid number at the bottom of any articles about family annihilation, DV etc would be good. It could lead to potential victims getting away before the perpetrator got to the stage of murdering them.

Surprised you disagree with that, Grimarse. What's your logic there?

Sadly, Women's Aid probably wouldn't have capacity to cope with additional calls if their number went into the national news. Might help them get more funding for their services from donations and grants, which would be good.

Absolutely, the Women's Aid details should have been included.

What the inclusion of the Samaritans number suggests to me is that there is information known by the press, but not reported (yet). Would the perpetrator have been deemed unfit for trial? Was he failed by the system in the same way as his victims?

This is exactly the sort of issue I'm challenging our local rag about - inadvertent though it may be.

I totally agree OP - they should have included the women's aid number. And funnily enough they don't link to the samaritans when reporting on terror attacks or mass shootings that also involve a suicide, do they? Reports of crimes like this are often inappropriate though.

I don't like the inclusion of comments about how nice and normal the abuser & murderer was, but on the other hand I do think it's important for people to be made aware that abusers don't look like monsters - they look like everyday men you see on the street. Which is why women should be believed when they report abuse, not ignored or disbelieved because 'he seems ok'. The man might seem like a nice guy, and you might think you know him, but that doesn't actually mean anything.

Article about this type of inappropriate coverage:

everydayvictimblaming.com/evb-analysis/family-annihilators/

Very strange tone with that. Agreed that it seems to have missed that this was a horrific triple murder involving a woman and two children.

And good point Helmet. No, they didn't, because in Paris they were innocent victims. Here, well, the victims were his property, so it's different...

Poor form.

So the bloke whose daughter went to the same primary school as the son did not notice mr Newman missing for 17 weeks whilst in jail for assault? How odd!

It is interesting when viewed as a corpus with other reporting about male violence against women and children.

One of the things I've had to do recently is to collate a portfolio of crime news about such violence and the lack of links between cases, the difference in language used for perpetrators and victims and the general consensus that these cases are all stand alone is haunting.

There seems to be little will to analyse in any depth what might be causing these incidents, especially as they are happening at an increased rate now.

Anytime a newspaper prints details of anybody killing themselves, they "have to" include the details of the Samaritans phoneline (ok it's not law, but there are agreed guidelines).

Agree that they could have included Women's Aid also.

Articles about family annihilators often take this odd, inappropriate tone.

I don't know how helpful or useful quotes about the apparent niceness or normalcy of a family annihilator is

it adds nothing to the understanding of the facts of the events, and at worst seems to excuse or validate the actions of the murderer

the man who does this is not some guy who suddenly snaps for no reason after a life of blameless connubial bliss, or whose bitch of a wife drove him to it

rather it comes after a long, usually well documented trail of violence and intimidation against his partner

If it wasn't so in this case, it would certainly be a first

The Samaritans actually have very strong guidelines on how suicide should be reported in the press, largely to discourage copycats. I'd imagine having the link at the bottom relates to that
www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-reporting-suicide

I wonder if they put it after reports about the Paris terror attacks?

There could be somebody contemplating suicide/ having suicidal thoughts who just happened to read the article.
Of course it should be there for all to see, however, Women's Aid should also be there.

If there is an error in the article, it is one of omission. They could and should have included one for anyone worried about a violent or unhinged partner. There is no reason to leave out the Samaritans though. They are there for everyone. They could also advise anyone worried about their partner being violent or threatening violence. The Samaritans are not only there for suicide prevention.

And yes, the people who carry out these acts are mostly men. And yes, they don't have 'unhinged murderer' tatooed on their forehead. They seem normal. Otherwise, we would stop it happening, wouldn't we?

That is really weird. I can't think that I've ever seen that in any other news stories.

His poor wife and children. Him? Not so much sympathy.

And the schhol run guy 'you don't know the circumstances of what happened?' With a previous jail sentence for beating her? Oh, I think we do know what happened.

What a tragedy. Those poor children - their future, their potential taken away.

Ah so it is the husband then? Sadly that was my first thought when I heard of the case. And it's really disturbing how so many men who do this are described as nice guys or everyday blokes by their neighbours and friends.

They've put American and Australian suicide prevention numbers too.

I imagine they also put them at the bottom of articles about terrible high school/office shootings-"suicides" in USA.

Oh but no they don't.

Good suggestion Rose.

Already done

Why not write to the Guardian and suggest they should have included the Women's Aid details? That's a positive change they can easily make and it might prompt a more general rethink.

???

I found the tone of the article odd

It seemed to paint events as some sort of catastrophic event, like a storm which just blew destruction in its wake, rather than actually quite predictable, given that he had form

The quote from an acquaintance about not wanting to slate him was unnecessary, and contributes to the impression that this was a bizarre unpredictable event

I find it strange that you respond to this as point scoring- I found the whole tone of article disturbing, and am not sure why you think it wrong to say so

What points have been scored? Are we not allowed to discuss news stories now?