Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: chat

Why the lack of detail

104 replies

Thewinterofdiscontent · 13/07/2021 19:48

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9783505/Jemma-Mitchell-accused-decapitating-Mee-Kuen-Chong-dumping-body-Devon-court-told.html

Horrible murder of a woman by a woman ( so fairly uncommon and therefore newsworthy ). In the paper but with no details as to suspect or motive. Why would they do this?

OP posts:
VikingVolva · 19/07/2021 11:51

There was actually relatively little publicity about Sarah Everard until several days after she went missing

That's not quite right.

She was kidnapped on the evening of Wednesday 3 March, reported missing on Thursday, and by the time people locally were waking up on Friday they were seeing notifications on social media, posters flooded the area, and it was in the newspapers headlines (appearing in online versions on that Friday 5/03)

When Mee Kuen Chong was 'only' a missing person, there was next to no publicity to help find her.

'missing white woman' is a pretty well recognised syndrome, and it's not just the 'woman' part that's problematic - the publicity around the disappearance of Richard Okorogheye was considerably slower to gain traction.

FatSleuth · 19/07/2021 17:33

Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK. The reality is that most of them get little or no publicity - and the other reality is that, in most cases, it doesn't matter. 80% of missing children turn up within 24 hours, 90% within 48 hours and 98% within a week. For adults, that's 75%, 85% and 95% respectively.

It's naive to imagine the media has no preferences as to whose stories it tells. All the evidence is that both media and social media stories about missing people who are white, young, female, attractive and high status are more numerous and individually get more public engagement - in other words, they're more numerous because they get more public engagement. So it's not really surprising that the victim's disappearance didn't get more publicity originally. Anyone who wants to change that would do better to focus on inequality generally rather than the media's priorities specifically, which are just a reflection of our preoccupations as a society.

Once the extreme nature of the murder was known (or rather of the disposal of the body, since the decapitation was not the cause of death, which is still undetermined) it received wide and instant publicity. I happen to think that the transition from missing persons case to murder case would also have attracted a certain amount of interest on account of the distance the dead body was transported, which is curious even without the decapitation aspect.

To address the OP (old-fashioned, I know), the lack of any great detail in the public domain about the defendant is partly because of reporting restrictions given the case is sub judice, and also because very little currently seems to be known about her. If the goal was to insinuate that she's a transwoman, you're not that much the wiser imo.

Clymene · 19/07/2021 23:50

@VikingVolva

There was actually relatively little publicity about Sarah Everard until several days after she went missing

That's not quite right.

She was kidnapped on the evening of Wednesday 3 March, reported missing on Thursday, and by the time people locally were waking up on Friday they were seeing notifications on social media, posters flooded the area, and it was in the newspapers headlines (appearing in online versions on that Friday 5/03)

When Mee Kuen Chong was 'only' a missing person, there was next to no publicity to help find her.

'missing white woman' is a pretty well recognised syndrome, and it's not just the 'woman' part that's problematic - the publicity around the disappearance of Richard Okorogheye was considerably slower to gain traction.

Sarah Everard's profile was hugely raised - as you've mentioned but failed to credit - by her friends and family who mounted a huge local and social media campaign.

While her being young, white and pretty had a lot to do with the press interest, credit should be given to those who were determined to bring her disappearance to wider attention.

JaniceBattersby · 20/07/2021 00:04

@FatSleuth

Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK. The reality is that most of them get little or no publicity - and the other reality is that, in most cases, it doesn't matter. 80% of missing children turn up within 24 hours, 90% within 48 hours and 98% within a week. For adults, that's 75%, 85% and 95% respectively.

It's naive to imagine the media has no preferences as to whose stories it tells. All the evidence is that both media and social media stories about missing people who are white, young, female, attractive and high status are more numerous and individually get more public engagement - in other words, they're more numerous because they get more public engagement. So it's not really surprising that the victim's disappearance didn't get more publicity originally. Anyone who wants to change that would do better to focus on inequality generally rather than the media's priorities specifically, which are just a reflection of our preoccupations as a society.

Once the extreme nature of the murder was known (or rather of the disposal of the body, since the decapitation was not the cause of death, which is still undetermined) it received wide and instant publicity. I happen to think that the transition from missing persons case to murder case would also have attracted a certain amount of interest on account of the distance the dead body was transported, which is curious even without the decapitation aspect.

To address the OP (old-fashioned, I know), the lack of any great detail in the public domain about the defendant is partly because of reporting restrictions given the case is sub judice, and also because very little currently seems to be known about her. If the goal was to insinuate that she's a transwoman, you're not that much the wiser imo.

This is correct. I’m a journalist. I do absolutely everything I can to publicise the missing appeals of every single person we are asked to by the police. The appeals for young black boys barely get any page views, but those for young white girls are off the chart. Journalists are more incredibly stretched than you’d ever believe. There’s only me covering my town. I cannot in any way justify spending days covering a story that nobody is interested in. Page views = advertising = keeping the paper going.

So please, if you want to see more coverage of missing people other than white middle class women and girls, the very best way to do so is to click on the stories about all the young black boys that go missing (and in my area, there are many who get sucked into county lines).

VikingVolva · 20/07/2021 08:40

Sarah Everard's profile was hugely raised - as you've mentioned but failed to credit - by her friends and family who mounted a huge local and social media campaign

It's an indictment,isn't it, that a PR campaign is needed? Families and friends always do their best to find their loved ones. It really shouldn't be down to chance of your occupation (Sarah worked in PR) that determines how visible the appeal.

The appeals for young black boys barely get any page views, but those for young white girls are off the chart

Yes, that's why I mentioned Richard Okorogheye.

And then there was Julia James - 'she was only walking her dog' didn't cause the same outrage as 'she was only walking home' even though the two murders were within a few weeks of each other.

Thread from the time, in case anyone is interested

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4233918-The-Murder-of-Julia-James

the latter part of it also discusses other cases and publicity levels, though that is looking more at murders (rather those reported missing during the time they were missing before found murdered, such as Mee Kuen Chong

FatSleuth · 20/07/2021 09:50

It's an indictment,isn't it, that a PR campaign is needed? Families and friends always do their best to find their loved ones. It really shouldn't be down to chance of your occupation (Sarah worked in PR) that determines how visible the appeal.

No. It's not. It's a reflection of the fact that, as I said upthread, the vast, vast majority of missing people turn up in short order. The police know this and follow protocols to assess when a disappearance warrants the diversion of time and resources from other operational demands. How robust and fit-for-purpose those protocols are and how consistently they're applied is another debate, but in my experience there's nothing in Sarah Everard's initial disappearance that would have warranted any very urgent police activity - and if there had been, in your own terms, that would have been wrong too, given how little reaction there also is when someone old, non-white and less attractive (in media terms) goes missing.

The allocation of police time and resources to missing persons cases is complicated, because there are perverse relationships between resources expended and tangible results. You can deploy a full-scale POLSA-led search, sniffer dogs, divers and door-to-door enquiries in a ten-mile radius, only for the missing person to walk in and ask what the fuss is all about as they just went to the coast for a day trip, and is that a crime. Or you can do all the same things and ten years later they're still missing. Or you can do none of those things and get either of those results.

Understandably, Sarah's friends viewed the cost/benefit ratio differently, and were willing and able to write off the 'wasted' time if she'd turned up safe and well, in a way that the police, as a publicly funded organisation, are unable to do.

Perhaps Mee Kuen Chong's friends felt the same, or perhaps they didn't, or perhaps they didn't know how best to mobilise, or perhaps they were advised to leave it to the police, or perhaps they knew full well what had happened but were too scared to say or do anything, or perhaps she didn't have any friends, or a million and one other things that no one here knows about.

There's no question but that structural inequalities play a part in how missing individuals are perceived, and perceptions can sometimes have an impact on outcomes, but it's all far more complicated than you seem to imagine - and if you want things to improve, a better target than the media would be the government, because the vast majority of missing episodes derive either from poor mental health or from the criminal exploitation of children, both issues that could benefit from an influx of funding and research.

VikingVolva · 20/07/2021 10:19

A agree with all the factors you list, some of which are very well known.

But to me that amounts to an indictment, not a reflection.

A vulnerable woman with mobility issues goes missing should be well publicised as a matter of course. Nor because of luck about what and who her friends are.

.

NumberTheory · 20/07/2021 19:09

@VikingVolva

A agree with all the factors you list, some of which are very well known.

But to me that amounts to an indictment, not a reflection.

A vulnerable woman with mobility issues goes missing should be well publicised as a matter of course. Nor because of luck about what and who her friends are.

.

Suspect this would not be effective. Public attention isn’t infinite. Vulnerable women with mobility issues go missing quite a lot (because of dementia, often). I think you’d end up with little helpful attention when you needed it if you indiscriminately publicised all such cases and that’s before you start considering all the vulnerable able-bodied women, or vulnerable men, or children…
FatSleuth · 20/07/2021 19:36

Plus, you're missing the point, Volva, which is that even when the police and the media do publicise such missing people, the public in general just doesn't really care as much as if it's someone young and pretty. Or someone with their head chopped off.

You might think that attitude sucks, every person matters etc, but the problem is one of social attitudes and their political underpinnings, not resource or media management.

the factors you list, some of which are very well known.

lol Grin

GCandproud · 20/07/2021 19:41

There’s another story in the news at the moment about a woman who murdered her mum and dismembered the body. Although it’s less common than men killing, it’s definitely not true that women don’t sometimes kill and that they don’t sometimes go to gruesome lengths to dispose of the body.

NiceGerbil · 20/07/2021 19:45

There's not enough room in the media to report on all, or even a good proportion of missing people.

I was surprised this case didn't get more attention due to the horrific nature of the murder.

Having said that most women murdered are not reported at all. Nor of men.

There's a load of things probably.

How much space they have to fill that day/ week.
Whether it comes to their attention of course.
Whether there are interesting things involved like victim is a nun or a model and they can show bikini pics or .. etc
Whether the person charged is I dunno. A multi millionaire. For some publications an immigrant from certain parts of the world. A judge etc.

It is what it is.

The fact is very very few awful crimes get reported at all.

NiceGerbil · 20/07/2021 19:46

@GCandproud

There’s another story in the news at the moment about a woman who murdered her mum and dismembered the body. Although it’s less common than men killing, it’s definitely not true that women don’t sometimes kill and that they don’t sometimes go to gruesome lengths to dispose of the body.
Has anyone said they don't?

Given that I doubt they have. What actual point are you making about this case?

NumberTheory · 20/07/2021 20:18

As it happens here was local news coverage of Ms. Chong's disappearance and an appeal for information a couple of weeks after she went missing:
www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/woman-missing-from-wembley-8085038

Thewinterofdiscontent · 20/07/2021 20:21

Thanks for all the replies.
It had crossed my mind that it might be a man but equally it just seems odd to report the case when no details other than the names are available.
If you know the people involved it doesn’t tell you anything of meaning and if you don’t, there’s little point in reporting it surely. The general public don’t hear about every murder because largely I guess they are just the issue of dysfunctional people and have little bearing on anyone else.
I thought it was unusual that a woman would chop of the head of another but obviously it hasn’t been confirmed she did chop off her mother’s head. Now there is another case of a woman beheading another.
It just seems odd given how rare it is ( presumably) that a reporter wouldn’t put it in context ie x amount of victims beheaded by men and women. Unless there isn’t much difference?

OP posts:
FatSleuth · 21/07/2021 01:05

I think you're right @Thewinterofdiscontent that there's been a strange lack of context for this case.

As far as I understand it, very little is actually in the public domain at present, and whereas some general background and statistics about murder methods and offender type, or famous historical decapitations or some such might ordinarily have been used to fill the gaps, I suspect the press is probably quite twitchy about beheading because of its associations with Islamic extremism (which there's no evidence of in this case afaik, I hasten to add). I think straying into that kind of territory might be argued to prejudice a fair trial as well.

Even so, I would say reporting the fact of the arrest and then in due course the charge has fulfilled an important role in public reassurance, just because the murder was so gruesome.

GCandproud · 21/07/2021 07:17

@NiceGerbil yes, the reason why there’s speculation about the sex of the offender is that so many people believe that a woman just wouldn’t commit murder and that she definitely wouldn’t dismember a corpse.
Jean Hatchet on Twitter was convinced that a natal woman would never use a circular saw for instance and did a Twitter poll about it. That was in the Phoenix Netts case where the defendant was a natal woman. All I’m saying is that it’s definitely less common for women to kill than for men to do it but it does happen and it just gives fodder for TRAs if every time there is a woman charged with murder people ask ‘hmmmm is this person trans?’ Which by the way, there are people on Twitter doing in respect of the woman who killed her mum even though there’s a photo of her.

VikingVolva · 21/07/2021 08:05

They have net confirmed cause of death yet - PM was inconclusive, nor have they said where the murder was carried out, or when/how. We do not know if beheading was the cause of death, a deliberate post mortem action, or the result of animal action on a body left in woodland.

This level of information entirely normal at this stage of English legal proceedings.

There is no need for speculation about the sex of the offender in this case - it was easily established from the accused's social media history. But even after that had been pointed out, some posters continued to question it, post slogans etc. That looks really bad, as it shows that people just pile on (and haven't RTFT, or spotted that it's been moved because there was no S/G angle)

It's good to read that there was some publicity about Mee Kuen Chong, whilst she was still a missing person, and so the hope would be she was found. After all people don't normally vanish from their normal daily lives.

I do not think the press coverage in the 'missing' phase was anything like other cases this year when missing people have been found dead.

And I don't think it's right to accept that that's just how things are.

FatSleuth · 21/07/2021 13:55

They have net confirmed cause of death yet - PM was inconclusive, nor have they said where the murder was carried out, or when/how. We do not know if beheading was the cause of death, a deliberate post mortem action, or the result of animal action on a body left in woodland.

The defendant was charged with murdering Mee Kuen Chong in London and then transporting her body to Devon, according to press reports of the court hearing, so that much is known. It would also be very clear to a pathologist whether decapitation was ante or post mortem, so the fact that the cause of death isn’t yet clear strongly suggests it was not that imho. If done post mortem, that could be for any number of reasons – to impede identification of the victim, to obscure the cause of death, to prevent identification of a particular murder weapon, for ease of transportation, to keep the head as a trophy, etc. I think ‘animal action’ is highly unlikely as a cause of complete decapitation, unless you think the Beast of Dartmoor has been staycationing in Salcombe. So there’s actually quite a lot known and published about the crime, just not much about the defendant.

This level of information entirely normal at this stage of English legal proceedings.

Not unusual anyway. If the cause of death was known it would usually be stated for the record.

There is no need for speculation about the sex of the offender in this case - it was easily established from the accused's social media history. But even after that had been pointed out, some posters continued to question it, post slogans etc. That looks really bad, as it shows that people just pile on (and haven't RTFT, or spotted that it's been moved because there was no S/G angle)

I think it’s a reasonable question actually, and certainly not one you’re entitled to proscribe. There’s an unusually small amount of publicly available information about her compared with the norm in the internet age. There might be lots of reasons for that, and the acquisition of a new identity is one. In conjunction with the violent nature of the crime, it’s a valid hypothesis imo.

I don’t see that her sex has been ‘easily established’ either. She does look female in the photos I’ve seen and she’s similar in looks to her sister, who is definitely female – but so what? Unless you think all transwomen are stubbly six-footers with prominent adam’s apples and implausible wigs, I’m not sure you can say with certainty – unless you’ve gone considerably more than the extra mile in your research. That’s not ‘piling on’, it’s keeping an open mind.

And of course we’re talking about the sex of the alleged offender.

It's good to read that there was some publicity about Mee Kuen Chong, whilst she was still a missing person, and so the hope would be she was found. After all people don't normally vanish from their normal daily lives.

There are around 350,000 missing episodes per year in the UK, actually, and that’s just the ones that get reported.

I do not think the press coverage in the 'missing' phase was anything like other cases this year when missing people have been found dead.

I disagree. Taking the number of missing episodes per year I’ve just mentioned, are you saying you think there are 100,000+ disappearances so far this year that have had more publicity than Mee Kuen Chong? I think the number is orders of magnitude smaller, probably in single figures, in fact. I think most people in the UK who have no special interest in the phenomenon of missing people would be hard pressed to tell you the names of more than two of them – Sarah Everard and Richard Okorogheye – so if by 'other cases' you mean 'two very specific other cases' then, yes, that's true, for the very specific reasons that pertain to those two very specific cases. It's bemusing how significant you think this is.

The other point you're missing is that, just as Sarah Everard became emblematic of women's inability to go about their business unmolested by men, and Richard Okorogheye's case shone a light on firstly the continuing issue of institutionalised racial bias in the police and secondly the ongoing crisis in male mental health, it's perfectly possible that Mee Kuen Chong's disappearance might have gone on to be hugely consciousness-raising about the vulnerability of older people living with dementia in the community. Except that then she rocked up 250 miles away with her head missing, which understandably changed the narrative completely.

And I don't think it's right to accept that that's just how things are.

Literally no one has said that, and some of us have made quite specific suggestions for change.

Tbh, it seems as though you’re just looking for reasons to tell the thread off and I'm at a loss to understand why.

Thewinterofdiscontent · 21/07/2021 15:28

They have net confirmed cause of death yet - PM was inconclusive, nor have they said where the murder was carried out, or when/how. We do not know if beheading was the cause of death, a deliberate post mortem action, or the result of animal action on a body left in woodland

So why report it at all? There is no public benefit to the story.

OP posts:
VikingVolva · 21/07/2021 15:30

I think it’s a reasonable question actually, and certainly not one you’re entitled to proscribe

Asked once, fine,

Answered and then people still appear to ask the same question over again and post slogans?

No, not fine. RTFT (surely no one thinks 'cancel the cheque' syndrome is appropriate on a thread such as this)

I don’t see that her sex has been ‘easily established’ either

The way to find the evidence has been described by more than one poster on this thread, and I do not see why it is being called into doubt. Again.

I'm not telling the thread off.
I'm interested in this discussion and have tried my best to keep it on-topic.

And clearly have read posts which describe lack of coverage as just the way it is n a different way to others.

NumberTheory · 21/07/2021 16:26

@Thewinterofdiscontent

They have net confirmed cause of death yet - PM was inconclusive, nor have they said where the murder was carried out, or when/how. We do not know if beheading was the cause of death, a deliberate post mortem action, or the result of animal action on a body left in woodland

So why report it at all? There is no public benefit to the story.

It follows up on the previous reports. There were reports about Ms. Chong being missing and requests for assistance. Then reports about the body being found and requests for assistance. Then identification of Ms Chong and requests for assistance. Reporting on the fact the police consider it murder and have arrested and charged someone is good and fairly standard journalism - even if there are still gaps in knowledge and restrictions on reporting due to fair trial requirements.
Thewinterofdiscontent · 21/07/2021 17:02

Ah ok, that makes sense if Ms Chong had some coverage as a missing person. Although I don’t recall it being in the Daily Mail.

OP posts:
NumberTheory · 21/07/2021 18:46

@Thewinterofdiscontent

Ah ok, that makes sense if Ms Chong had some coverage as a missing person. Although I don’t recall it being in the Daily Mail.
No! But if you were seriously asking about what the point of much Daily Mail reporting is, I don’t think this is the article to start with!
NiceGerbil · 21/07/2021 19:59

The idea that a missing person being found without a head is not news is... ???

They haven't found a cause of death?

Well whatever the cause was. Cutting your head off will certainly do it if you're not dead already...

Eh? Sorry don't get it.

VikingVolva · 27/10/2022 20:44

This is an old thread, and I am posting on it to round it off.

Jemma Mitchell was today found guilty of murder

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63399511

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63397674

Swipe left for the next trending thread