"An insult to human dignity": Mother of Bondi stabbing victim hits out at the media
The mother of Bondi stabbing victim Jade Young has hit out at how social media and major news outlets reported on her daughter's death.
Jade Young, 47, was one of six people fatally stabbed by Joel Cauchi during his violent rampage at Bondi Junction Westfield on April 13th.
Following the tragedy, graphic videos and images of the attacks were circulated online.
Now, Jade's mother Elizabeth Young, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday, said it was “shameful” how her family found out about Jade’s death.
“Members of my family recognised Jade and her husband Noel in uncensored vision being played on a mainstream TV news feed, with vision of Jade lying on the ground at the shopping centre, receiving CPR,” she wrote.
“The vision, shared on social media and picked up — and used by — multiple news media programs shared my daughter’s final moments with millions. Finding out that a loved one has been murdered is a horror that I do not wish on anyone. But seeing the vision of their last moments and knowing it has been broadcast to millions of people is an appalling breach of privacy and an insult to human dignity.”
Ms Young went on to say how some of the major media organisations that shared violent images of the Bondi stabbing “approached our family within hours of the attack, offering their condolences … and the opportunity to share our family’s story”.
“These same media organisations reported the failure of a certain popular social media platform to take down videos, without acknowledging their own complicity,” she said.
“I am not surprised at their hypocrisy, but I am angry.”
“Sharing violent images or personal material from the lives of victims of crime is not free speech — it is enormously profitable for some but it’s speech with a steep price for the victims,” she said.
“Those who run social media platforms are remote from the pain inflicted by their uploads and the dystopia they have helped create. It is the victims who bear the cost.”
Last week, hundreds of mourners attended a public memorial for Ms Young, an acclaimed architect and mother-of-two, where mourners were encouraged to wear colourful clothing “in memory of Jade”.
Image credits: Getty Images / Facebook