Something happened to Raoul Moat in the days after he killed his ex-girlfriend's new partner, as well as shot her and wounded a policeman. He ceased to be a human being.
Or, more precisely, he gave the tabloid press an excuse to strip him of his humanity and turn him into a monster.
On 8 July - day-six of the hunt - the Sun decided to throw everything it had at "THE PSYCHO COMMANDO".
"Maniac," continued the sub-head on page four, "feels like Rambo"; introducing a column in which Dr Kate Painter, a Cambridge University criminologist, offered her opinion on Moat's state of mind.
In five pages devoted to the story, the Sun portrayed Moat as a "self-pitying monster", a "6ft 3in brute", a "gun spree hulk" capable of living "wild for weeks". His campsite, discovered by police on farmland, was described as a "lair".
The other red tops took a similar line, but the Sun led the way, dehumanising the fugitive to the point where there was only one obvious conclusion: the police should hunt him down and kill him like an animal.
The impression created was that Moat did not deserve due process, in the way a rabid dog does not deserve due process. He was a dangerous animal on the loose.
And yet ...
Those widely circulated pictures of Moat as a child were at odds with the description of the adult fugitive; their juxtaposition with the reporting of Moat's crimes accentuating the unacknowledged tragedy of mental instability that can overwhelm families without explanation.
But the Sun's captions ignored all that.
"Ginger top," mused one underneath what looked like a school photograph, "but at five his eyes already have intense look."
"Awkward," concludes another under a photo of, "Moat aged 13 at mum Josephine's wedding."
And the most absurd of all: "Cute baby ... but two-month-old Moat clenches his fists."
So what are we to deduce? That it was predetermined that Raoul Moat would become a 'monster'? If you believe the Sun, the signs were there from - virtually - the moment he left the womb.
We don't know what the 19th-century Italian Cesare Lombroso thought about people with ginger hair, but he certainly considered certain physical traits as indicative of "atavistic" criminal tendencies. Lombroso's works 'The Criminal Man' (1876) and 'Crime, its Causes and Remedies' (1899) are linked to the eugenics movement in the early 20th century and, later, the Nazi's justification for the Holocaust.
These theories are discredited and discarded by modern criminologists.
So, now that the dust has settled, what can journalists learn, looking back?
Here are a few more questions worth asking:
Beyond the reporting of the manhunt, what do we know about the psychological effects of anabolic steroids and how they are regulated? Should they be classified higher than Class C?
And the overarching question, already referred to the IPCC: why were warnings from the Prison Service about Raoul Moat's intentions not acted upon?
If those warnings had been heeded, lives may not have been lost or changed forever. As it turned out:
"There was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me."
These words, spoken by the creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, could just as easily apply to Raoul Moat - a 'monster' created by the media.
Join the debate: Media power, media responsibility.
Or, more precisely, he gave the tabloid press an excuse to strip him of his humanity and turn him into a monster.
On 8 July - day-six of the hunt - the Sun decided to throw everything it had at "THE PSYCHO COMMANDO".
"Maniac," continued the sub-head on page four, "feels like Rambo"; introducing a column in which Dr Kate Painter, a Cambridge University criminologist, offered her opinion on Moat's state of mind.
In five pages devoted to the story, the Sun portrayed Moat as a "self-pitying monster", a "6ft 3in brute", a "gun spree hulk" capable of living "wild for weeks". His campsite, discovered by police on farmland, was described as a "lair".
The other red tops took a similar line, but the Sun led the way, dehumanising the fugitive to the point where there was only one obvious conclusion: the police should hunt him down and kill him like an animal.
The impression created was that Moat did not deserve due process, in the way a rabid dog does not deserve due process. He was a dangerous animal on the loose.
And yet ...
Those widely circulated pictures of Moat as a child were at odds with the description of the adult fugitive; their juxtaposition with the reporting of Moat's crimes accentuating the unacknowledged tragedy of mental instability that can overwhelm families without explanation.
But the Sun's captions ignored all that.
"Ginger top," mused one underneath what looked like a school photograph, "but at five his eyes already have intense look."
"Awkward," concludes another under a photo of, "Moat aged 13 at mum Josephine's wedding."
And the most absurd of all: "Cute baby ... but two-month-old Moat clenches his fists."
So what are we to deduce? That it was predetermined that Raoul Moat would become a 'monster'? If you believe the Sun, the signs were there from - virtually - the moment he left the womb.
We don't know what the 19th-century Italian Cesare Lombroso thought about people with ginger hair, but he certainly considered certain physical traits as indicative of "atavistic" criminal tendencies. Lombroso's works 'The Criminal Man' (1876) and 'Crime, its Causes and Remedies' (1899) are linked to the eugenics movement in the early 20th century and, later, the Nazi's justification for the Holocaust.
These theories are discredited and discarded by modern criminologists.
So, now that the dust has settled, what can journalists learn, looking back?
Here are a few more questions worth asking:
- Was Raoul Moat feeding off the media attention - and, if so, did blanket coverage inflame the situation?
- Did journalists stop to consider that they could be shot or kidnapped by the gunman?
- Police knew the fugitive was monitoring the media - so why was there no information blackout?
- Even without an official blackout, was it responsible to report police movements in detail?
Beyond the reporting of the manhunt, what do we know about the psychological effects of anabolic steroids and how they are regulated? Should they be classified higher than Class C?
And the overarching question, already referred to the IPCC: why were warnings from the Prison Service about Raoul Moat's intentions not acted upon?
If those warnings had been heeded, lives may not have been lost or changed forever. As it turned out:
"There was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me."
These words, spoken by the creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, could just as easily apply to Raoul Moat - a 'monster' created by the media.
Join the debate: Media power, media responsibility.
