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When Grief Becomes Content

by Ram ben Ze’ev



When Grief Becomes Content
When Grief Becomes Content

The reported kidnapping and possible murder of Nancy Guthrie—an elderly woman and the mother of a well-known journalist—has once again revealed something deeply troubling about modern society. Not only the crime itself, but the reaction to it.


Within hours of such events, microphones appear. Cameras are raised. Podcasters assemble. Individuals with nothing more than a smartphone and a social-media account declare themselves “press,” and proceed to dissect, speculate, and distribute fragments of private anguish to a global audience.


What astonishes me is not only the speed, but the assumption: that the public has a right to know every detail.


It does not.


In matters of tragedy, the only people entitled to intimate knowledge are the family directly affected, the police, and the authorities lawfully responsible for investigation and justice. Beyond that circle, curiosity is not a right. It is an intrusion.


We are living through a cultural shift in which suffering has become consumable. Tragedy is packaged. Distress is streamed. Grief is analysed in real time by individuals who contribute nothing to the resolution of events, yet profit from the emotional intensity of them.


This is not journalism. Journalism informs. It educates. It holds institutions accountable. It strengthens society through truth and clarity.


What we increasingly witness instead is performance.


The modern preoccupation with inserting oneself into every calamity—as though one possesses insight, authority, or some moral entitlement to participate—is a sickness of contemporary life. The so-called “right” of the press has expanded to include anyone with an iPhone and a monetised channel. But access to technology does not confer wisdom. And amplification does not equal importance.


If people were thoughtful—though many are not—they would recognise the cost of this obsession. Constant exposure to violent and distressing details does not uplift society. It does not produce compassion. It breeds desensitisation, anxiety, and a quiet normalisation of evil.


The greatest culpability lies with those who profit from this cycle.


When grief becomes revenue, tragedy becomes inventory. The incentive shifts. The more shocking the detail, the greater the engagement. The greater the engagement, the higher the income. Private suffering becomes a commodity in a marketplace of outrage.


This is not neutral behaviour. It shapes culture.


We cannot fight evil by obsessing over it. We cannot diminish darkness by magnifying it endlessly before an audience that neither needs nor should possess such access. Constant mass exposure to wickedness does not defeat it; it embeds it into the rhythm of daily life until it feels ordinary.


There is a difference between necessary public knowledge and voyeurism. A society that forgets that difference loses something essential: restraint.


Restraint is not weakness. It is civilisation.


Perhaps the more pressing question is not what happened in this or any other tragic case. The question is why so many believe they are entitled to participate in it.


The answer reveals far more about us than about the crime itself.



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