The media's not to blame

2009-11-19 10:48

As a member of the oft-maligned media corps, I try to take great care to avoid sensationalising matters, and to try and treat article subjects with sympathy and a little understanding. And I’m always the first to point out when I think that the media are blowing a situation out of proportion.

However, I have watched with fascination and disgust as Donovan Moodley, self-confessed killer of Leigh Matthews, tried to beat the “blame the media” drum, as he attempts to get his sentence reduced.

In this case, the media did nothing wrong, and Donovan is entirely to blame.

His argument is that he was “forced” to kill Leigh after the media blew her kidnapping out of proportion, and he realised that there was no way he could release her without being identified.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Donovan Moodley kidnapped his classmate, held her hostage and attempted to extort money from her family for her return – and he thinks that the fact that the media made a fuss is the reason that he couldn’t release her.

Regardless of whether the story was splashed all over the front page, or quietly ignored by the media, Leigh would still have known who he was, and as soon as she was released, would have identified him. The media had nothing to do with it.

Kidnapping and extortion are heinous crimes. It’s not like a case of swine flu that the media can choose to make a song and dance about. The drama is in the fact that the crime was committed – not in the fact that the media chose to cover it.

No responsibility?

Moodley further tries to state that the judge was influenced by the media furor in his sentencing, giving poor Moodley such a long stay in prison, even though Leigh’s murder was not premeditated.

Now, whether or not Moodley had planned to murder Leigh at the outset – and honestly, how is it possible that he hadn’t thought through the fact that she would be able to identify him – he certainly made cold-blooded plans to kill her at some point in the proceedings.

It’s not like they had a lovers’ quarrel, and in the height of passion, he whipped out a gun and shot her. At some point, he sat down, thought through his options, and made the plan to do away with her. Pre-meditation is pre-meditation, regardless of whether it was three hours or three years in the planning.

And it’s not as if the circumstances got the better of him, and he found himself, unfortunately, at the convergence of events over which he had no control. He kidnapped her; he tried to get money out of her parents for her return, then resorted to murder when it became apparent that he couldn’t return her. These are not events that were out of his control.

At no point in these proceedings would a decent, upright, moral human being have progressed with the chain of actions. Moodley’s surprise that he has been lumped with murderers and kidnappers is an indication that he hasn’t really accepted responsibility for what he’s done.

His view that the media blew things out of proportion, as if he’s suggesting that a little kidnapping and extortion between friends should be overlooked, is an indication that his four years in prison have done little to bring about remorse for the gravity of his crime. He should stay there for the remainder of his sentence, in the hopes that he starts to pay back his enormous debt to society.

• Georgina Guedes is a freelance journalist. She was proud of the way that the media mobilised support in the wake of Leigh’s kidnapping.