Britt Lapthorne Let Down By MSM
BRITT Lapthorne’s family, mum Elke, father Dale and brother Darren have requested privacy after the confirmation the body found in the sea off Dubrovnik, Croatia, is the missing 21-year-old backpacking holiday maker.
Picture…ABC
Britt disappeared after visiting the Fuego nightclub in the old quarter of the city during the evening of September 18. Police are still investigating.
“She was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” a distraught Elke Lapthorne told reporters.
Three things must be mentioned.
1. The 17,000 anxious Facebook entries from friends, family and acquaintances desperate to find the missing Melbourne University student. Anorak was alerted by the mother of one of Darren’s pals. This is new, a significant development in the use of social blogspots. Britt’s own travel diary was there.
2. The superb support given to the campaign aiding the search and help the family get to the truth surrounding the facts of her disappearance given by The Age, Melbourne’s morning newspaper. It started the campaign after being alerted via an email from a worried friend who was in the UK. It was ably supported by it’s sister media throughout Australia. Pressure was put on police and the Federal Government to help. It became first a national and then an international concern.
3. It is a matter of considerable shame European media did NOT pick up on the story and help to push for a solution to the mystery of Britt’s disappearance. News coverage has always been victim to introspection and at times is downright parochial. Parish pump politics and flower shows sell more newspapers than motorway planning inquiries. What the European media missed here was item one in this list…the world is now a global village and the facts surrounding Britt’s disappearance and now the certainty of her death does diminish us all.
Britt Lapthorne’s friends, family and supportive media could have done no more,
Britt was probably lost before the campaign started, but the fact of the campaign itself is an enduring tribute. One extended family link friend who helped in the search told Anorak she would never ever again criticise the time youngsters spent on networking sites.
This first major use of social networks to search and drive the campaign forward in the bid to find a missing person is Britt’s legacy.
- AGW
Bob Spinks On The Britt Lapthorne Case
How The Media Treats Australian Backpacker Britt Lapthorne
Posted: 12th, October 2008 | In: Media, Twitterings Comments (10) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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October 13th, 2008 at 6:56 am
W. Tell: We would have been there at around the same time then.. I may have been one of those carrying a camera at your shoulder while watching the difficult and belated entry of the UN attempt to pick up the pieces. The UN failed the Balkans in the most miserable fashion.
The atrocities were bi-partisan and if you were with one of the UK forensic digging squads, you know it.
You are correct there is a great deal of poor history in the region. That is why Britt was there and it remains relevant: I appreciate there are at least two sides to an argument but suggest you read this former Soviet view:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/120.html
If a fraction of what is quoted there is accurate, then your various points above are meaningless.
There is a great deal which is ugly about the area and this case. Today there is an accusation the CCTV footage at the Feugo club where Britt was last seen has been wiped. The Lapthorne family are now demanding answers. Her father Dale is convinced this is a murder case. Again, he is demanding answers.
Ethnic differences between an Australian police liaison officer and the Croatian police is also being cited. How bad can it get?
Since the vast majority of Britt’s contacts while there would have been English speakers it was essential the widest possible coverage be given in that language throughout Europe. It was not.
As it turns out, little would have helped. Anorak did it’s best and has been thanked.
Plus…this is not a new situation for the Croatian police. The same mistakes are being repeated:
In a similar case three years ago, Croatian police said a body found in the sea had probably been there for several months before it was confirmed to be that of murdered British backpacker Peter Rushton.
He had been dead three weeks. A pattern perhaps?
This area remains a traumatised and brutalised part of Europe. A very dangerous place at times.
It is a full universe away from Valentines Day 1984 when Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean were crowned the Olympic ice skating champions after scooping gold in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. …that a pretty enough image for you?
I have news. It no longer exists. The old city quarter of Dubrovnik is superficially bright and attractive. …it has a dark underbelly.
October 12th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
AGW, I have to agree with Julian, Damian and Polly… has tragic and sad as this story is, it can not be broadcasted around the world. Please don’t attack other media outlets from not giving it full coverage. As Polly said, maybe you meant to say European media in English?
Also, how did you go from talking about this poor girl and her families tregady to attacking Croatia? You say you have seen ‘their’ burial pits… so have I (UNPROFOR ‘95)… please tell us all your expertise and what you have seen. Perhaps you can then tell us how you came to the conclusion that just because the Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs were at war that they are all classed as genocidal? According to the ICTY, the vast majority (upwards of 90%) of war crimes were committed against the Croats and Bosniaks by the Serbs…
BUT, I think it best that you don’t reply because you just turn this into an ugly argument when all we want to do is pray for this girl and her family.
So please, concentrate on Ms Lapthorne and not on the politics of 1990’s
October 12th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
.”It is a matter of considerable shame European media did NOT pick up on the story and help to push for a solution to the mystery of Britt’s disappearance. News coverage has always been victim to introspection and at times is downright parochial. Parish pump politics and flower shows sell more newspapers than motorway planning inquiries. What the European media missed here was item one in this list…the world is now a global village and the facts surrounding Britt’s disappearance and now the certainty of her death does diminish us all.”
What do you mean “European media did not pick up on the story”?
I saw and heard the story in my country - Slovenia -, I saw and heard about it in the Croatian media, and I am sure I would have found it in other neighbouring countries’ media also, I just didn’t bother to look.
The story wasn’t very prominent, true, but that would be the case with anyone. As sad as it is, it’s even sadder that there are sad stories galore in this world…
Or maybe you meant: “European media IN ENGLISH”?
Who’s being “parochial” now…?
Finally, and for what it’s worth, I felt as if somebody had punched me in the stomach when I found out that the body found WAS hers. I am terribly sorry for her and for her family.
October 12th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I met Britt a few times in the days before her death and am distraught by the news that she is dead. However, I have to agree with Julian (the first half of his post, at least).
We could fill a 24-hour news channel with missing people. But then no-one would leave the house for fear of the evil predator that lurks around the corner. Maybe a missing backpacking Australian IS of more interest to British denizens than an untraceable Chinese factory worker, due to the amount of Australians in the UK. But the media has its priorities and it has to balance the number of disappearances it covers. It doesn’t even cover every missing British person, let alone every one that happens to have English as a first language.
As has been mentioned elsewhere on Anorak, social networking is growing as a medium for dealing with situations like this. Citizen journalism in all its forms, and I include setting up Facebook groups in this bracket, is excellent for situations like this. The whole world DOESN’T need to know about every missing backpacker. But all those who were staying in hostels in the Balkans around this time DO.
Many backpackers in the area at the time of Britt’s disappearance are still on the road and do not get to see the BBC. Facebook is many travellers’ only real connection with the world outside of their trip.
Facebook’s family tree of friendship connections is the ideal way of getting this sort of information to the people who should know and would want to know. One day Facebook will fill this role properly. It doesn’t yet. It took until 11 October for me to hear of poor Britt’s death. But in the future social networking with serve its essential role of getting the right news to the right people at the right time, a role the mainstream media couldn’t and shouldn’t ever try to fill.
R.I.P.
(If anyone connected with Britt wants to get in touch with me for any reason, I have included my website in the field above. My contact details are there.)
October 12th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Your ego bruises far too easily Julian: This is a news driven site.
The point was always that when the position is reversed, the British media (in particular)
scream blue murder for the missing UK lost one. It is overkill. The story remains as valid as if if the missing one is British, German Yugo, Kiwi, Hong Kong Chinese or Dutch. If we hear of such cases they are given coverage.
Croatia. Bosnia. the Balkans generally …have you seen the burial pits?
I regret I have; so yes, I do have a smattering of too close for comfort knowledge of the subject and far too little knowledge of the whereabouts of the still assisted-hiding places of the criminals cowering away from the spotlights at the International War Crimes Tribunal.
If you had bothered to read the stories about Ms Lapthorne properly (and at all) you would seen she is indeed of German decent and had taken the decision to visit the Balkans to fully understand the politics of the region. She had also decided to visit Auschwitz…
..and if you are flashing genocide statistics about the place.. I agree totally the British, German, in fact all European imperialists, were utter swine, their Australian and South African descendants were unspeakable.
The white new-American slaughter of the Native American is an abomination yet to be properly recompensed or apologised for..
We weren’t around for the majority of those happenings but we, and Britt Lapthorne, saw and failed to understand the modern inhumanities.
We CAN still make a difference. Try it, you’ll feel heaps better about yourself later.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Julian,
The fact that Australian media are parochial does not mean that all media should be parochial; the reality is that vast numbers of Australian travellers do come to England and through England, so that some publicity here might well have triggered some evidence to help find out what happened to her.
I’m not sure whether you are decrying the parochialism of the Australian media or instead holding it up as a pattern to emulate….
October 12th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Oh I see, this is one of those sights where people just say what they feel like without actual facts or conclusive evidence.
Why is it when something happens to one of our own we all jump up and down in a big hoo-haa but we do little to help anyone of other nationality? Australian sources covered this story because it was one of us that was missing. If it wasn’t then no Australian media would run the story. Ask yourself this: how many times to you hear of a story on Australian news that there is a missing French tourist in Germany? Or of any missing persons case beside the Madeleine case? None and no one can say the Madeleine case is the only newsworthy one out there.
It is also incredibly insensitive to suggest that Croatia is an exponent of genocide. Even Britain and Australia does a better job at that! Those people have suffered more than any Australian has (except for perhaps Indigenous Australians). However, it does confirm that this site has no credibility whatsoever.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:15 am
It was both shameful and disgraceful. The 50 missing Australians figure you mention are both extremely long and short term and many do not wish to be found. There are thousands of similar stories throughout Europe This was a totally different and newsworthy case. A mystery and almost certainly the inevitable result.
You do have an original thought there and picked up on another cracking line.
Well spotted Julian! Do you think Britt’s disappearance has a Serb-Croat revenge dimension? A sort of antipodean ethnic wet-work cleansing…the Croatian nation is one of the best exponents of the art of genocide after all.
They did sever one of her arms and both legs while they were at it. Hardly worth a mention I know, but there aga…
October 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I think it is quite naive of this author to suggest that it was shameful that European media did not pick up this story. There are thousands of missing people in Europe at any one time, a lot of them international tourists, so why does this case prevail over all those others. Furthermore, there are approximately 50 missing Australians overseas, yet, their tragic circumstances are not reported in the media. Australia is not the center of the world and we should not expect the world to drop everything when one of us gets in trouble as sad as it may be. This is especially the case when the people of another country, in this case Croatia, are accused of not doing anything to help or not enough when they have bigger problems at hand. Furthermore, Australia did little to help Croatia when thousands of innocent civilians were being murdered after the country was attack by Yugoslavia/Serbia. So why should have we expected the whole country to stop what they were doing to help an Australian tourist. This is a sad story indeed, but we have to be realistic too.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Upwards of one million Australians are working or touring in Europe and the rest of the world at any one time. Many people anxious for Britt’s safety pleaded with the BBC, ITN, Sky and every mainstream media outlet in the UK, to cover the story.
To their damnable shame they did not.
It also show a blinkered editorial news savvy… many of that teaming million are in the UK and one may have had a clue and been able to help this despairing circle of family and friends.
Britt’s family think it was murder, certainly British and European media silence was little short of murderous . News editors who don’t seem to know a cracking story when it’s handed to them on a plate?
Anorak did. It actually worked to cover the story.