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BRITISH POLITICIANS HAVE condemned press and social media intrusion in the wake of the death of television presenter Caroline Flack.
The 40 year-old died by suicide and was found in her east London flat on Saturday.
She was best known for presenting reality show Love Island from 2015 to 2019, along with The X Factor (2015), the Xtra Factor (2011-2013) and Strictly Come Dancing (2014, 2018).
She had been facing court charges, accused of assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton, and her death shines a spotlight on the tabloid press which splashed the TV presenter over the front pages following her arrest.
The role social media might have played in her death is also the source of fierce debate, with the presenter being on the receiving end of abuse since her arrest.
“I have no doubt that social media has a huge role to play in this,” said fellow presenter David Bull. “I wish people would think more carefully about what they tweet.”
Labour leadership contender Sir Keir Starmer signalled he would take action to “diversify” the press if he won the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
He said the wider media had been responsible for “amplifying” the messages coming from social media.
Speaking at the latest leadership hustings in London, he condemned the constant “vilification” of Labour politicians in the press.
“I think it shocked a lot of people yesterday,” he said in reference to Flack’s death.
“It wasn’t just social media, it was the media amplifying what social media was doing. It was both strands. There is a human impact.”
He added: “The press more widely have to take responsibility as well. Not just for the hatred and abuse but for the vilification constantly of Labour MPs and Labour leaders.
“We have got to do something to diversify our press, to have a better media.”
Fellow leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey condemned the way the press had treated the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“We know the impact certain elements of the media have on people in public life,” she said.
She added: “We have got to recognise the impact that that has on individuals. It is more so on individuals in public life.”
However Lisa Nandy, the third candidate left in the contest, said social media companies could not be left to police themselves, suggesting the current situation was like “the Wild West”.
“I worry about the approaches that say we allow the social media companies to regulate themselves,” she said.
“In no other area of life would we allow private companies to police themselves. We ought to make sure the state has a system of regulation and support around that.”
Shadow Culture Secretary Tracy Brabin said in the wake of her death that the Labour Party would continue to press for a new inquiry about media regulation.
“There’s been a lot of blame-gaming, people blaming ITV, people blaming the press,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Westminster Hour.
“This is why the Labour Party were pressing for Leveson 2, because it does feel like after everything that we went through we still are back at that place again where celebrities are being hounded by particular news outlets and their private life is being splashed across the front pages.
“I do think it’s important that we press social media but also newspapers don’t get away with it either.”
Transport secretary Grant Shapps described the presenter’s death as “incredibly sad” and extended his sympathies to her friends and family, but said there were potentially a number of factors in the case.
“There are obviously questions of duty of care with anything you do, television included. I think before we rush to conclusions, we see what all the circumstances are,” he said.
“Obviously there are lots of things going on in this particular case. I do think it’s right to look at those properly and allow the authorities to do their job.”
Health secretary, Matt Hancock, who is also responsible for mental health services, also urged individuals to show more compassion in future.
He tweeted: “So sad to see the news of Caroline Flack’s suicide. Shows we must do so much more as a society to look out for each other – whether online or off.”
Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service – which took the assault case against Flack – outlined how it reaches decisions over whether or not to charge someone with a criminal offence.
The explanation came hours after the presenter’s management company criticised the CPS for pursuing a “show trial” regarding her assault charge despite her boyfriend saying he did not support it.
A statement said: “We do not decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence – that is for the jury, judge or magistrate – but we must make the key decision of whether a case should be put before a court.”
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With reporting from Press Association.
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It’s not just the press. It’s also the people who read it. Social media sites too are vicious. And just look at how vile the comments can become on the Journal.ie. They become very personal. Everyone is entitled to an opinion (informed), but how we express that and reply to others is our responsibility. We are no better than the red tops if we do not behave with respect.
@Deborah Blacoe: Another issue is the youth of today are infatuated with social media and reality tv.. Young People are looking at the likes of Love Island and think that’s the body I should have. The people on those shows are not a fair representation of society and when young people look at it they get depressed because they don’t have the body of whoever is on the show..
@Deborah Blacoe: exactly. Everyone is blaming the media which is true to an extent but also a cop out. GTA creators always have the same response when quizzed about the violence in their games, it sells, there is demand for it and therefore is a reflection of the public. This has far more to do with the power of social media on normal people and the stigma around mental health.
The amount of people I heard making jokes out of this at work without a thought.
@David Garland: to be fair Big Brother first aired 20 years ago. But you’re right they are pure toxic crap
@Mark: Yea but big brother had all shapes and sizes. These days reality tv only shows Men who spend six hours a day in the gym and Women who are stick thin so they all look good in a bikini.. I was talking to a personal trainer the other day and he said most of his business comes from young people who are obsessed with how their body looks..
Red top rags like the Sun, the Mirror, the Star, plus other rags like the express and the mail should be investigated…. every single story they came out with, every lie should be collated and counted, when they are totalled up, fine them £ 1 Million per lie, with all monies donated to suicide help lines and bereavement councillors.
That will soften their cough
@Noely Kelly: The Herald over here isn’t far behind. A complete rag that would print anything in order to boost sales.
@Noely Kelly: They print these stories because people want to read them . Stop buying these sort of papers and that will soften their cough a lot sooner . !
But tabloids are only half the problem ….. what about the social media users who are so critical and vile behind their keyboards ?
How many more people have to die before somebody does something about these cowards
@Noely Kelly: the online editions are where the nasty trolls take over and demonize people
@Mary Mc Carthy: you can always back away disengage from Twitter and other social media in fairness.
It’s the tabloids that are sreaming their crap from every newsstand and corner shop that’s harder to get away from.
@james dimaggio: I wouldn’t expect anything less from one of Dinner O’Briens rags in fairness James
@Noely Kelly: Well that’s Freedom of the Press and how they exploit it
There is a sense of hypocrisy surrounding this.
There are cries of “trial by media is unfair”, and “only the courts should decide and the defendant should be considered innocent until proven guilty”.
These are wholly true statements that everybody should agree with, but a huge amount of people who are saying it regarding this situation are the ones who screamed for a certain sportsman’s head during his court case, and even after he was found not guilty. He even had to move country to continue his playing career due to the vitriol.
The media can be cruel, biased and vindictive in their coverage, but that is only because there is a rabid readership with their own bias and cruelty that has a demand that needs to be supplied to.
Its a shame it has taken the tragic death of somebody in that situation to open some of those peoples eyes.
@Mike Ryan: the vast majority of reality TV shows are based around the humiliation of contestants and while the Jeremy Kyle show was probably the worst example of this it’s not the only one. These shows are populated by contestants who by and large are already mentally fragile, seeking affirmation from their peers. If instead of affirmation and praise they get the opposite reaction, they can’t handle it, indeed most of us would struggle with the levels of vitriol and abuse Caroline Fleck had to endure.
@Mike Ryan: well said Mike. I agree completely. And nobody would have cared today if the poor girl didn’t end up taking her life. These cries of ” something has to be done” etc from polititions is just appeasement for the rabid readership who would otherwise continue to being cruel.
@Connoroconner: these shows only exist because people watch them. They represent a chance to become a celebrity for a little while so there is no end of people willing to sign up.
The press, in paticular the red tops thrive on celebrity gossip and misfortune, the web has no end of websites dedicated to this and there are endless lines of people out there to lap it up.
The press hounded Princess Diana, they hounded Meghan Markel, they hounded Caroline Flack and countless others and the thing is they dont give a hoot. Whatever sells they will do and there is no limit to what they will stoop too.
Look up Brenda Leyland, she was portrayed as a troll but she didnt even come close.
@Derek Lyster: mob rule…. That’s how our lives are governed. Mob rule
Murdoch’s legacy
Lady Gaga called social media the toilet of the internet and she’s right it is.
@Margaret Mcgarry: That seems as good a description as any I’ve heard, however she, like most celebrities, is adept at using the power of social media. I’ve never seen shows like Love Island or Strictly so I can’t comment on them. Someone told me recently that their appeal to a certain audience is like crack cocaine, they seem to be that addictive.
I remember in the 1980′s when Elton John sued the Sun newspaper for the then record breaking sum of £1m after they admitted fabricating a story about him, and they revealed they still profited. I remember thinking at the time that newspapers doing that had to be made to hurt, that meant their profits, to ensure they don’t do such things again. of course they never were and went on to do worse things over the years.
Social media is an enormously powerful tool, as we’ve seen it can be used to destroy someone. It can make careers or destroy them, bring happiness or crushing sadness, it’a an enormously complex tool we still don’t fully understand.
I think the journal forgot another line of help https://www.anyman.ie/ .
Men suffering from domestic abuse.
@Gerard Casserly: I don’t think they forgot, if the genders had been reversed in this alleged assault and the man killed himself people would be on here saying how he was a coward and how happy they are that he is dead.
@tom forde: The hypocrisy from women in this is absolutely incredible, it’s like she was the victim on smashing a lamp of her SLEEPING partners head
@Peter Govan: Not all women. I’m disgusted by the amount of women saying what she did was a silly mistake and that if he hadn’t have gone to the police she would still be alive.Obviously her death is awful and she clearly did have mental health issues but that doesn’t mean what she did should be forgotten about.
@Sam Harms: are women who hit their partners now going to tell them if you report it they will kill themselves like ‘poor ” Caroline
@tom forde: The irony of all this is that neither of you have any idea what actually happened that night but are happy to pass judgement based on the narrative created by social media and tge red tops. Perhaps people should simply leave the investigating to the professionals.
@Sorcha Ní Shúilleabháin: the professionals did investigate it and found enough evidence for the CPS to bring the case to court
@Sam Harms: I was fairly put in my place (so they thought anyway) by someone because i dared to have this viewpoint. Its like if youre not blaming the media and her poor (blameless!) boyfriend for all thats happened her youre heartless and horrible. The truth is, i was as saddened and shocked as anyone initially, and its tragic that she felt this was better than facing the consequences of HER actions, nobody elses. The media was always very interested in Caroline Flack, but that was because she did not live a low profile, quiet existence. She loved the attention when it was positive.
I don’t know why her death has bothered me so much. I didn’t know her and rarely watched anything she was in. I think it’s the fact that the media have the power to utterly destroy a person without any accountability really. Invade their lives and turn the screw mercilessly, social media and keyboard tough guys go largely unpunished but this poor girl felt she had no other way out. She wasn’t perfect, had her issues and her moments I’m sure, who doesn’t, but to be pushed to suicide and no one will accept any blame in it just seems so wasteful. God rest her.
If people hadn’t such a morbid interest in other peoples failings and problems, these rags and gutter journalists would not have an outlet for their vitriol.
Hugely popular events were held in massive arenas throughout the Roman Empire, with the Colosseum (or Flavian Amphitheatre) the biggest of them all. Thirty, forty or even fifty thousand spectators from all sections of Roman society flocked to be entertained by gory spectacles where wild and exotic animals were hunted, prisoners were executed, religious martyrs were thrown to the lions and the stars of the show, symbols of the Roman virtues of honour and courage, the gladiators, employed all their martial skills in a kill or be killed contest. Today its called reality TV and Celebrity News Media. Human nature generates cash and that won’t change anytime soon.
Check the News feed on your phone, etc, I bet you half of the stories are being fed from The Mirror and The Sun. If they are, you have the option to block them. I blocked them a long time ago because I was sick of the sensationalised headlines popping up, begging me to read them. Block them and maybe they’ll get the message!
The sickening part of this is every rag that hounded this poor girl will now be running tributes to her.
@Jason Ebbs: True, sadly. One paper in particular deleted an article it had written about her the day previously about an hour after her death was confirmed. Someone counted – it was (I think) their 25th article about her since New Year’s Day. Relentless.
So long as people read this trash…..
@anthony mcgowan: it this type of content was not in ridiculously high demand with readers obsessed with celebrities personal lives and scandals then there world be no need for this type of hounding and invasion of privacy. It is consumer led, the rags are giving a scarily large proportion of consumer’s what they love to consume.
@anthony mcgowan: Exactly, it still baffles me how the red tops aren’t seriously in financial difficulty yet, the demand for physical media for news has to be lower than ever with the introduction of smartphones. Liverpool had it right by banning the Sun, now lets see the same happen to the Mail, the Independent, etc.
Celebrities should chip in together and set up a newspaper and target these journalists, editors and their families and see how they like these stories splashed everywhere online. Pay photographers to stalk them as they go for family dinners.
The answer to online abuse is simple. Like “Letters to the Editor”of newspapers . People who wish to post comments should by law be required to use their actual real name and supply their address to the platform they are using. Hiding behind anonymous pseudo names gives people permission to say whatever they like as they know they won’t be held accountable.
I guarantee that there would be a tsunami of accounts shutting down overnight .
Let’s call it Caroline’s Law.
@Aine O Connor: Your well hidden there yourself Aine.
@Aine O Connor: Lets not. She didnt kill herself because of online abuse. She told the police and others, that if she was tried for assault that she would kill herself. She was told a few hours before she killed herself that the trial would be going ahead and she could accept it. She smashed a lamp over a sleeping mans head. She had mental health issues but obviously she had serious rage issues as well.
@Pauline Gallagher: *couldnt
The papers werent the only ones slating her.other “celebs” also That moron david walliams took a few cheap shots at her expense. Kick someone while their down aye.
These gutter rags like the sun and Dail mail they’re just rotten to the core. Hopefully they will be some investigation into these w**kstains. RIP Caroline
They should start with the CPS if they want to blame someone along with the media
@Margaret Kane: The CPS didn’t club her boyfriend over the head with a lamp while he slept.
Her ex fiance has claimed he had similar experiences and had to sign a gagging order of some kind.
Seems to me she was a tyrant, highly abusive and dangerous. It’s likley the world’s a safer place without her. What she couldn’t handle was the public humiliation of being the first high-profile woman charged with DV, which is why she killed herself hours after she found out the case was to proceed.
Yes, there may have been underlying mental health issues seeing as it’s claimed she self-harmed, but she used that illness to further coerce her former partners – typical abuser behaviour.
You carry on blaming everyone else though
@Perlum Sprite: last resort of someone who was guilty is to threatened suicide!! She done wrong and should have faced the consequences of her actions . I remember a friend of mine years ago who had girlfriend who said to him she would commit suicide if he broke it off with him .she tried it jumped into the river when it was very low . Pulled out in tears we all had to feel sorry for her for awhile but he eventually got rid of her and her manipulative ways ..
The rollercoaster of being in the public eye is simply too much to bear for a lot of people. It’s brilliant when your on the up, but when first chink of weakness appears in your armour, the media etc tear you apart like a pack of wild dogs .
May she RIP
I wonder if she’s had been plain old mrs bloggs would the police have been so eager to drag her into court?? I doubt it! I would suggest it was that that led to her suicide. Nothing else.
@Colm O’Leary: maybe not but it doesn’t take away the fact she hit her boyfriend and that’s physical abuse which shouldn’t be allowed.
Also if she hadn’t had done that the press might have not been all.over her and cause she is in the public eye. She obviously had anger issues and with those issues she had others.
If your in the public eye and are going to do something that shouldn’t be done then there is coincidences
@Derek hutchings: so true and if the “average” person done this people would be waiting to hear what sentence they got and not care if they took their own lives or not, feel sorry for her though!!!
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