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Thu Apr 09,2009,
14:21 GMT
Is it News or Peep? The Case of Baby Kaylee
Posted by Hal
A baby is born with a malformed brain and has very little time to live. Her parents decide to donate her heart to another baby. They take the two month old off the respirator keeping her alive and wait. The baby breathes on her own, surviving for now but just barely.
It’s a sad story. But what kind of story is it exactly? Is it news or is it Peep culture? In other words, is this a story that we need to know about locally, nationally and even internationally? And if we do need to know this story, do we need to know every detail of how the parents are feeling hour by hour, day by day? Do we need to see the videos “Kaylee’s father on what comes next” (courtesy the Globe and Mail and CTV) and “the short life of baby Kaylee” (courtesy The Toronto Star)?
Remember we define Peep culture as a culture in which we no longer derive our entertainment from staged events, but from the lives of other “ordinary folks”. More and more, this is spilling over into not just what we consider to be newsworthy, but how newsworthy events are reported.
So is the Globe and Mail keeping us informed about the issues of the day when it offers us the aforementioned video, plus the stories “Baby’s father expresses his frustration”, “Ian Brown talks to Jason Wallace” (the father again), “Parents hope to bring her home”, and “In Pictures: Wallace family photos?” on the front page of its website?
“Crystal Vitelli kisses her two-month-old daughter Kaylee.” – a family photo that is part of the Globe and Mail pictorial.
How much do we need to know? How much do we deserve to see? What kind of cultural forces are at play when the newspaper editors don’t consider a story complete until it comes with pictorials, videos and fireside chats?
I leave you with this quote to consider: “Wednesday afternoon, in an exclusive private conversation with The Globe and Mail, as a throng of reporters and a forest of TV cameras waited outside the hospital for his next public appearance, the father of the baby that will not die described the tortured place he has been living since March 16, when Kaylee was admitted to Sick Kids.”
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1:28
A newborn’s head is very large in proportion to the rest of the body, and the cranium is enormous relative to his or her face. While the adult human skull is about 1/8 of the total body length, the newborn’s is about 1/4. At birth, many regions of the newborn’s skull have not yet been converted to bone, leaving “soft spots” known as fontanels.silver bracelets
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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17:12
Oh jesus. As a relatively new mom (our son is now almost 1 and 1/2 years old), I can’t help feeling heartbreak over that story. But, that’s the point, right? That’s what the Globe and Mail is counting on—your morbid fascination with this story will keep you checking in for updates. I do have a penchant for morbid fascination (mind you, I did recommend that you see the doc. “The Bridge,” which capturing a year of suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge, SF. That was in the interest of your research, of course . . . ah hem.) No one is above being interested in this kind of stuff, but, one would hope to find this type of story in other arenas, say, not your daily newspaper, or your daily newspaper’s web site. I’m creeped out. I thank you.
I need to get back to work.
And, as always, you need to get back to work.
Yours,
Your Publisher