Kim Goldman, a victims’ advocate since the murder of her brother Ron, made famous during the O. J. Simpson trial, has written, Media Circus: a look at private tragedy, a book that tells the stories about ordinary grieving families and victims forced by the media to experience their private trauma in a very public way.
While Goldman does not recount her own story, through interviews with victims and the families of victims of violent crimes, she discloses ten tales of living with unspeakable horror in the glare of the national spotlight. Some of those she spoke to include Debra Tate, sister of Sharon Tate, murdered by Charles Manson’s “family” in 1969; Judy Shepard, whose son, Matthew, was the victim of a gay hate-crime; Marie Monville, wife of Charlie Roberts, the Amish school shooter. They tell tales of the shock and pain they suffered while trying to deal with mostly unwanted local and national media scrutiny. Many are still living with the after effects of these crimes. Besides the loss of their personal lives and identities, many still receive hate mail and threats.
Media Circus forces us to ask ourselves if the media goes too far in its quest (and ours!) to learn all the gory details of infamous crimes. Does the public’s right to know outweigh the privacy of those affected by these types of crimes? Many books written on crime focus on the perpetrator and their motives for committing their crimes. Media Circus focuses on the victims and how their victimology was furthered by the intense media scrutiny forced upon them.