Katy French

deasyd

I am doing a masters in journalism and I have to write an essay on ethics in the media. I have decided that I am going to do it on the treatment of katy French in the print media. I need to focus on one controversial article on katy French and assess whether it was ethical or not. This can be before or after her death. I would also like to get people’s opinion on the issue of Katy French and the circumstances in which she died. Do people feel sorry for her or do people think that she brought it upon herself?
Was she exploited by the press and did she fall into all of the traps of an inexperienced model in Ireland. Was it a two-sided relationship, of a young eager girl hungry for publicity, and her ‘bargaining with the devil’; and the intrusion? Ultimately did she get what she deserved? Have young people learned anything from her death? I welcome all comments.

speedboatchase

The problem you might find is that her death, and it's reaction were not controversial; the media didn't ask questions and pulled all their punches to laud mediocrity, in much the same way Jade Goody was portrayed as a saint last year. If anything the subsequent media reaction (or over-reaction) was a damning indictment of just how much celebrity, and z-list celebrity is celebrated in our culture. Pretty girls holding lollypops on grafton street are described as "supermodels", Rosanna Davidson goes to Morocco with someone's ex is a five-day running story. This girl, who you would argue was twice as well-known because of her death, was suddenly described in a couple of publications as “our Diana”, with broadsheets getting in on the act too. The hypocrisy that her death was related to drugs, even after she had repeatedly stated she was no longer involved in drugs in any way, was completely lost on reporters. In the initial reports it took a few days until we had any grasp on the facts, even when the cocaine use would have been widely known we were told she "collapsed" or was "seriously ill". The only thing that would have been controversial is if anyone in the following days actually reported the facts and didn't write exalting puff-pieces - it didn't happen.

As cruel as it sounds, of course she got what she deserved, she knowingly took cocaine and had a cocaine overdose, I don't see how that is "tragic". I doubt young people have learned anything from this either because again, she, and the rest of Irish models, are just a vessel for companies to get photos in daily newspapers and cheap publicity and are not genuine role models or figures of aspiration

IRE60

I think you'd want to 'neutralise' your stance before you begin:

controversial article: are you defining controvicey, are you going to the arbiter on the rights and wrongs of an article?
again are you defining ethical articles?
" Do people feel sorry for her" - why would people have 'pity' in her?
your definition of her as being as simply either: "exploited by the press" or "an inexperienced model" leave particularly little wriggle room and it's actually is very narrow cast. Where is the opinion that she used the media for here own gain?

Nobody who dies in any such a way "gets what they deserve"

I think you have picked a particularly emotive topic and, if you will forgive the opinion, you are coming at it with a less than neutral stance to decide controvicey and ethics in print media

engrish?

IRE60 wrote: »

Nobody who dies in any such a way "gets what they deserve"

Unless it was a nazi about to shoot an innocent baby when the gun backfires and kills him

IRE60

oh yea- I forgot that scenario, I do apologise.

Note: Please read my previous post with particular reference to gun wielding Nazis as, seemingly, they 'get what they deserve'

bag puss yawned...........

engrish?

IRE60 wrote: »

oh yea- I forgot that scenario, I do apologise.

Note: Please read my previous post with particular reference to gun wielding Nazis as, seemingly, they 'get what they deserve'

bag puss yawned...........

I can actually imagine you doing quotes with your fingers as you talk

kpbdublin

I would look at Katy French as a celebrity commodity.

1. Company wants to sell widget. It is able to hire Katy French to pose in somewhat ludicrous fashion in a way that promotes the widget.This type of promotion is much cheaper than taking out an actual advertisment.

2. Picture editors happy to publish pictures of glamorous woman in ever more ludicrous poses, because she brightens up otherwise dull news pages.

3. Katy gradually becomes famous and can charge companies more for ludicrous poses, because having her pic in the paper sells more widgets.


4. She becomes famous for not doing very much - reported widely in the tabloids.

5. Then she becomes famous for becoming famous for not doing very much - and is reported on widely in the posher papers as a sort of figure of fun.

6, She dies and her plight is turned into some cod morality tale about the Celtic Tiger and the perils of inconsequential fame, drugs etc.

7. Her story is reheated every so often in slow news weeks.

8. Journalism students write academic tracts about her.

I don't think there was anything particularly unethical about her treatment, and no evidence that the media was responsible for her death. She had a niche as a sort of all purpose media clothes horse, and she probably earned a decent income from that work. And then she died in unfortunate circumstances.

deasyd

I just want to point out from my original thread that I do not think that there is anything tragic surrounding the circumstances of Katy French’s death. As harsh as it might seem I have no sympathy for her. To me a tragic death is someone who is taken suddenly, a person that lived a good life, did good things and somehow met a horrible demise. People seem to forget that Katy shoved a load of coke up her nose and suddenly everyone was surprised that she died and thought that it was such a waste of such a young life. To me that isn’t tragic, it’s pathetic and it was also highly illegal. She was able to talk openly on national Irish television about her use of cocaine and she suffered no caution or consequence for her actions, which I believe lead to her so called ‘tragic death’.

Where were her family while all of this was going on? At the end of the day she was 24 when she died and was famous for at least two years before that. I am now 24 and I have seen some of my friends ruin their lives with drugs. Now in Ireland I believe that there is such a casual attitude to drugs. I also see a younger generation that feel the need to get drunker and drunker on a night out. Having a few drinks, a dance and maybe score at the end of the night doesn’t seem to be enough for people anymore.

I believe that Katy French represents the droves of young people in this country that underestimate the power of using illegal drugs and drugs such as alcohol that alter your behaviour. In the past, most people assumed that a drug addict was a person who was a scumbag or ‘down and out’. To me a drug addict is someone who uses a drug regularly, has a reliance on it or associates it with the weekend or having a good time. These people nowadays have good jobs. They are teachers, models, Gardai, you name it.

The fact is Katy thought she was invisible. Her family took a number of articles to the press council after her death and succeeded in their quest for justice in relation to the print press and received apologies for articles that were deemed unethical by the press council. My problem with this is that, before her death no publicity was bad publicity. The press labelled her a ‘media whore’ before her death and then afterwards labelled her ‘Ireland’s Princess Diana’. To me that is hypercritical and unethical to completely change their stance because she had died. I think people have to see her for what she was. She was a famous 24-year-old that was famous for being famous, a drug addict that lied about it and she was her own worst enemy. Don’t get me wrong, we all make mistakes, but she was a dreadful role model. I think her death at the time scared a lot of young people because coke had gotten so casual as well as the disaster that happened in Waterford with all the lads falling ill after the bad batch of coke and she shone a light on that issue, but it was shorted lived!

Thanks for all the replies keep them coming J

FlutterinBantam

As are the coterie of so called 'celebs' who move in packs today.

These people are on hire to the highest bidder and have no depth or substance.

They are merely packaging to promote a commodity and usually their only priority is to promote themselves, be seen in the public eye, using whatever means they can.

It tells a sad story about society today that these people can make so much money for doing nothing productive other than being there.

It's a sad indictment on all of us that shallow creatures like these can manipulate the media and that we lap this drivel up.

Getting to the bottom of that mindset might be a better subject for a thesis.

IRE60

media whore -

more astonishing assertions -

can you actually site the media or media organisation that branded here a media whore, it may have been an opinion of many - but where was that printed or broadcast.

mabet

Katy French being held up as an icon to me was shameful. She represented the rich and spoiled and attention seeking model lot in this country. Why the media made such a fuss of her death I will never know. What about all the deaths of young people from cancer that one might never hear of. They are tragic but not Katy French who brought it on herself through her own wicked lifestyle. I doubt any mother in Ireland would want her daughter to have turned out like Katy French!!!!:)

eth0_

Sorry but was Katy French ever courted by newspapers OTHER than the Sunday Indo and the Sunday World?

I don't think she got a bad deal from the press following her death. Most of not all of the reports seemed overly sympathetic, taking a "poor Katie, struck down in her prime by these evil drug dealers" stance. Perhaps that's an aspect you could concentrate on - why was her friend vilified for "allowing" her to take drugs in her house? He didn't hold her down and shove cocaine up her nose. She was an adult and she surely knew the risks associated with cocaine. Nothing tragic (in the traditional sense of the word) about her death at all, i'm afraid.

deasyd

why was her friend vilified for "allowing" her to take drugs in her house? He didn't hold her down and shove cocaine up her nose. She was an adult and she surely knew the risks associated with cocaine. Nothing tragic (in the traditional sense of the word) about her death at all, i'm afraid.[/QUOTE]

I completely agree. There was nothing tragic about her death it as more stupid than anything else. I can't help feeling nasty by saying that though. Do we not all make stupid mistake? I have never been famous or in the public eye. How would I have managed it all? My difficulty is why was she ever given the media coverage when she was alive in the first place?

Is it right for journalist to give so much newspaper space to a young model famous for being famous, even if she craves it? Do they not have a responsibilty to draw the line?

krankykitty

For me, whatever the circumstances surrounding her death, I don't like to hear of a young person dying.

However, much of the media sh1te afterwards concentrated into portraying Katy French as a saint, and everyone else who had ever disagreed or fallen out with her portrayed as the opposite, the case in hand being the friend who's house she herself took the cocaine in, as previous posters have rightly pointed out.

The Sunday Independent in particular was dreadful drivel, simpering, sychophantic articles (yes Brendan O'Connor, I'm looking at you), talking about what good friends they were with her and what a wonderful girl she was - when they (not necessarily BOC mind) were slagging her in previous weeks.

On the other hand, there was also the many Drugs Are Bad M'kay type pieces, wanting "justice" for "Our Diana" by locking up the mean drug dealers who forced cocaine up the poor girls nose :rolleyes:

If I remember rightly, they also villified that ex boyfriend of hers and took great delight in his misfortunes afterwards.

The whole thing was the straw that broke the camels back for me with the Sindo, I haven't let that rag darken my door since. Not just to do with Katy French mind, I think I just became acutely aware of its sh1teness. That's a good thing really

fontanalis

Weeks before her own death she had no problme gettig plastered on the front page of a tabloid to tell her drug hell story after the young fellas in Waterford died after taking cocaine. To me she seemed like someone who craved fame and is a sad reflection of the pseudo celbrity culture.

97i9y3941

i didnt know what to make it,the celebs made it a kind of a ok to take drugs and it was just a misfortune,you look at the "celeb" and "friend" gavin lamb on prime time few days after talking about the culture,i think the media played it aswell because it was the height of the boom and she had it all,the looks and glamour,and as another poster pointed it,the tragic deaths down in waterford,nobody gave a f#ck,you didn't see any celebs or government ministers at their tragic funerals...

hotmail.com

Her sudden death made French a celeb for about 2 days.

Most adults didn't know who she was. I don't mean any disrespect, but I feel that her so called fame has been exaggerated. Jade, in my view, was a celebrity.

bigbrotherfan

I'm sure poor Katy French never imagined that she would be the subject of part of a Masters in Journalism! The unfortunate girl certainly craved media attention and I for one had never heard of her until after she died. Seems she finally got her wish in death ... became famous... because in my book, in life, the girl was just a wannabe. That's no disrespect to the girl - she was a beautiful girl and I hope she and her family have some peace.