Daily dose of voyeurism

Vindicated by DNA, but a Lost Man on the Outside

The article explains the plight of one Jeffrey Deskovic, wrongly convicted of a rape and killing sixteen years ago. Mr. Deskovic was exonerated through DNA evidence in 2006.

There is a story here, but not one that can be told in the column inches of a newspaper, and especially not one that resorts to cheap stunts to heighten the reader's emotional response while quietly manipulating him.

For example, the first lines --

As a boy, Jeffrey Mark Deskovic could swim the length of a pool underwater without coming up for air. On sultry days at the Elmira state prison, where he spent most of his 16 years behind bars for a rape and murder he did not commit, Mr. Deskovic would close his eyes under a row of outdoor showers and imagine himself swimming.

See how easily Mr. Deskovic's complex emotional response is condensed for public consumption? He was a swimmer, readers, and now, in jail, he can only imagine swimming! Isn't that sad? Don't you feel for him, reader?

Some later lines --

He had never lived alone, owned a car, scanned the classifieds in search of work. He had never voted, balanced a checkbook or learned to knot a tie.

He missed the senior prom, the funeral of the grandmother who helped raise him, and his best friend’s wedding.

And, of course, the obligatory --

He said he had never made love.

Yes, can you imagine, reader? You, who take these things for granted, the knotting of ties, the attending of funerals, the making of love? Don't you feel for him?

No, you don't. Because the article depends on gawking at the man and taking an almost vindictive pleasure in enumerating his sorrows, the only thing it extracts from the reader is a reaction of pity. No attempt is made to portray Mr. Deskovic as a real human being; he is made out instead to be a degraded showpiece, losing all dignity in the face of this caricaturing of his life.

The New York Times is far from the only medium culpable; in fact, it seems that most American media is preoccupied with trying to peer into people's personal lives. Fox News, for example, uses its prime-time news broadcasts mainly to discuss rapes and murders of beautiful young women. TLC (The Learning Channel) ensures increased viewership by broadcasting graphic images of morbidly obese men and women undergoing medical treatment. Larry King and his ilk conduct celebrity interviews that reveal their subjects' personal lives in lurid detail. And so on.

To deplore this sort of relentless voyeurism, though, is misguided. We are all of us despicable in our own separate ways; who cannot claim to derive pleasure from another's pain? Which one among us is so enlightened that the fall of a famous personality does not cheer us in some undefinable way? If empathy is a human trait, then so is condescension. We can hope to preserve some sense of self-superiority by such contrived socially endorsed acts of disapproval; but dignity? Not a chance.