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Death of Television Presenter Caroline Flack in the news

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Xenophon PCDGS

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Around 1830 hours today, I tuned into the TV to the BBC News Channel, expecting to hear how the amber warning of rainfall that was due to worsen the flooding situation in a number of areas had unfolded during the day, where homes and businesses had already been affected some hours previously and the Army had been called out to assist in flood defence work.

What did I see instead. Total hype about the suicide of some 40 year old woman, due to stand charges next month of assault against her partner and whose bail condition stated she was to have no contact with her partner.

Before anyone asks, I am sure there is no need for a "link", as the major part of this posting concerns "Storm Dennis" that has already been noted elsewhere on this website.
 
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bramling

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Around 1830 hours today, I tuned into the TV to the BBC News Channel, expecting to hear how the amber warning of rainfall that was due to worsen the flooding situation in a number of areas had unfolded during the day, where homes and businesses had already been affected some hours previously and the Army had been called out to assist in flood defence work.

What did I see instead. Total hype about the suicide of some 40 year old woman, due to stand charges next month of assault against her partner and whose bail condition stated she was to have no contact with her partner.

FWIW I agree.
 

J-2739

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To be fair, it has just recently happened, and she seemed to have a large following due to her presenting of popular shows with high viewership, so I don't see why it should not make headlines, at least for the time being. It doesn't take away from the tragedy that could occur as a result of Dennis.
 

Busaholic

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Reading this while watching BBC TV 10 p.m. news, where it's taken up the first five or six minutes: in contrast, the Radio 4 10 p.m. news had it as third or fourth item, after Storm Dennis and the first death outside Asia of a Coronavirus victim. I feel Radio 4 had a better sense of proportion.
 

johntea

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It’s not just ‘some woman’ though it’s Caroline Flack...

I can see the sad suicide opening up a huge can of worms in general for the media going forward, some of which were almost ‘trial by media’ regarding the alleged assault on her boyfriend
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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It’s not just ‘some woman’ though it’s Caroline Flack...

I have never heard of the woman in question before, but whoever she was, she was not above the law.

If the British legal system decided that she had a case to answer, this is why, because of the assault that the charge against the woman relates to, carried a bail condition of no contact with her partner. It seems a rather drastic action to commit suicide rather than to face the court hearing next month, which does tend to suggest some underlying reason not stated so far.
 

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FWIW, I think you’ve completely misunderstood the situation. You don’t know the story, you don’t know the narrative and therefore have come up with some pretty horrid view.

She was due to be charged and found this out very recently. Both her and her boyfriend have urged for the charges to be dropped - they were not against both of their wishes. Whilst I am not condoning her actions, the way the media have reacted to the allegations and the entire situation has been disgusting. ‘The Sun’ have been caught removing literally hundreds of articles they ran against Flack, but if you actually spent a few moments to research and understand the narrative, you will find other news studios will still have such articles about.

There is also an overarching theme to this: that this is a third person involved with the ‘Love Island’ franchise to commit suicide, yet another person involved in an ITV programme to do so, coupled with an embroilment if the media and their actions against these people, and the lack of support ITV has shown its contestants and staff.
 

Bayum

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I have never heard of the woman in question before, but whoever she was, she was not above the law.

If the British legal system decided that she had a case to answer, this is why, because of the assault that the charge against the woman relates to, carried a bail condition of no contact with her partner. It seems a rather drastic action to commit suicide rather than to face the court hearing next month, which does tend to suggest some underlying reason not stated so far.

Nah, you just haven’t taken the time to research and understand what the media and public have been putting her through over the last few months. Anyone would’ve cracked with that pressure. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
 

tbtc

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I have never heard of the woman in question before

You may not have been aware of her, but the sudden/unexpected death of a relatively young celebrity is always going to be big news, especially in the hour or so after the news came out (i.e. this was very topical), whilst the storm had been expected and only a few days after the last stormy weather, so perhaps the broadcaster thought that informing people of the very recent death of someone in the public eye was more newsworthy than a reporter sheltering in a storm performing a short piece to camera along the lines of "yes, it's still raining".

Then you add into the mixture the combination of tabloid sensationalism, whether the media hype contributed things, the fact that there had previously been a couple of deaths relating to the programme that she presented... it's a big story for a lot of people. Maybe not the likes of you and I, maybe the Venn Diagram of "Love Island viewers" and "forum members" doesn't have much of an overlap, but the news has to cater to what the Great British Public are talking about - any look at social media will show huge numbers of people reacting to the news of a celebrity - it's much bigger "news" as far as large numbers of people are concerned than the fact that houses built near rivers prone to flooding have had more flooding. That's not to dismiss the concerns of people in flooded areas - I'm just trying to explain why something unexpected (sudden death of famous person with emotional backstory) is more newsworthy than something expected (winter weather causes travel disruption, rivers that flood fairly often flood again).
 

gazthomas

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Nah, you just haven’t taken the time to research and understand what the media and public have been putting her through over the last few months. Anyone would’ve cracked with that pressure. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
I'm in agreement
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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FWIW, I think you’ve completely misunderstood the situation. You don’t know the story, you don’t know the narrative and therefore have come up with some pretty horrid view.

"The story and the narrative" from what was put forward on the BBC New Channel seemed to be an attempt by the BBC to allow sychophantic platitudes beyond any reasonable need to do so. "Horrid view" you say, but I say she was not the victim of the assault but the perpetrator and that is why she was facing the court hearing next month. Hard truths, nonetheless.
 

Bayum

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"The story and the narrative" from what was put forward on the BBC New Channel seemed to be an attempt by the BBC to allow sychophantic platitudes beyond any reasonable need to do so. "Horrid view" you say, but I say she was not the victim of the assault but the perpetrator and that is why she was facing the court hearing next month. Hard truths, nonetheless.
In which case - don’t say anything at all. You’ve made a whole post on why the death of someone (any preventable death is horrific, bar none) and made very light view of this and portrayed her as committing suicide as ‘drastic’ ‘just because she was in court next month’.

You know nothing of the situation, so shut it.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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You may not have been aware of her, but the sudden/unexpected death of a relatively young celebrity is always going to be big news, especially in the hour or so after the news came out (i.e. this was very topical), whilst the storm had been expected and only a few days after the last stormy weather, so perhaps the broadcaster thought that informing people of the very recent death of someone in the public eye was more newsworthy than a reporter sheltering in a storm performing a short piece to camera along the lines of "yes, it's still raining".

The usual excuse of the meaningless term "celebrity" has raised its head again.

Your somewhat facile mention of a reporter commenting on the weather totally ignores the human feelings of those people who have had homes and businesses ruined yet again by flooding. I do believe you have connections to Sheffield, which has had a number of flood inundations over the years that must have had devastating affects on the lives of those affected.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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In which case - don’t say anything at all. You’ve made a whole post on why the death of someone (any preventable death is horrific, bar none) and made very light view of this and portrayed her as committing suicide as ‘drastic’ ‘just because she was in court next month’.

You know nothing of the situation, so shut it.

You are denying the fact that this woman faced a court hearing next month facing a charge of assault.
 

Bayum

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You are denying the fact that this woman faced a court hearing next month facing a charge of assault.
I’m not denying that, and I’ve said multiple times I’m not denying that. Regardless of this fact, your thread is in poor taste, you’ve portrayed the issue negatively and based suicide on a court case which is absolutely not the reason this happened.
 

theblackwatch

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"The story and the narrative" from what was put forward on the BBC New Channel seemed to be an attempt by the BBC to allow sychophantic platitudes beyond any reasonable need to do so. "Horrid view" you say, but I say she was not the victim of the assault but the perpetrator and that is why she was facing the court hearing next month. Hard truths, nonetheless.

Given your wording that she was the perpetrator, presumably you don't subscribe to the 'innocent until proven guilty' system of justice we have in the UK?
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Given your wording that she was the perpetrator, presumably you don't subscribe to the 'innocent until proven guilty' system of justice we have in the UK?

Are you saying that the woman had not committed the assault, but had still be formally charged with the offence that also carried the bail conditions that were imposed. The British legal system normally do not bring charges without the facts being studied first, as many possible cases are not taken forward for prosecution by the CPS. In this case, the matter was decided to be so proceeded.
 

theblackwatch

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Are you saying that the woman had not committed the assault, but had still be formally charged with the offence that also carried the bail conditions that were imposed. The British legal system normally do not bring charges without the facts being studied first, as many possible cases are not taken forward for prosecution by the CPS. In this case, the matter was decided to be so proceeded.

No I am not. That decision is made by a court.

I have answered your question, maybe now you will answer mine.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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I have answered your question, maybe now you will answer mine.

Most certainly. "Innocent until proven guilty" still means that the court case had to proceed, so it could afford both defence and prosecution councils to make their cases. It does not mean that a claim of innocence precludes the case being heard in a Court of Law.
 

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It seems a rather drastic action to commit suicide rather than to face the court hearing next month, which does tend to suggest some underlying reason not stated so far.
Yes, such as that you're not her, and you don't know what her mental state was? You also haven't even made a little bit of attempt to deploy any empathy for her, but yet have still decided to give us all your opinions about her.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Yes, such as that you're not her, and you don't know what her mental state was? You also haven't even made a little bit of attempt to deploy any empathy for her, but yet have still decided to give us all your opinions about her.

The only opinions that I have stated cover the facts of the charges she was facing and the court hearing that was due in March. Are you saying these are not the case?

There is no reason why I should deploy any empathy to the woman in question whatsoever. It was her decision to commit suicide.
 

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an attempt by the BBC to allow sychophantic platitudes beyond any reasonable need to do so
I'm certain that if you died by suicide in as yet unexplained but clearly very difficult circumstances, and people on this forum expressed support for you following your passing, your family would be grateful to hear those described by other people as sycophantic platitudes too.
 

DanNCL

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The news today was that she'd committed suicide. Newsworthy because she was a well known person (particularly amongst younger generations), not because she was facing trial for an assault. None of us know exactly what her mental state was or why she took her own life - we can only speculate and there's no point whatsoever in doing so.

It's sad when anyone commits suicide, but it's particularly bad that yet another person linked in with Love Island (and ITV in general) has ended up taking their own life - ITV really need to sort their act out and start caring about the people who appear on their shows.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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I'm certain that if you died by suicide in as yet unexplained but clearly very difficult circumstances, and people on this forum expressed support for you following your passing, your family would be grateful to hear those described by other people as sycophantic platitudes too.

It was during the BBC News Channel programme that I described in the first posting on the thread that the said platitudes followed one after the other. A friend in our age group who was visiting us and watched the news suggested it seemed an attempt to emulate the post-scenario of the death in Paris of Princess Diana.
 
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