The danger of using prejudice as the short cut to (in)justice

Was in the coffee shop today and the only paper on the rack was the Daily Express (The Deadly Excess). The headline in 2 inch bold "

"70% Don’t believe McCanns"

Now like most people who’ve thought about this at all, I have no idea what happened to their little girl, Madeleine. It’s a mystery, an enigma, a tragedy and undoubtedly, a crime. But what can it possibly mean to print a headline like that? What moral contortions might justify the use of such unsubstantiated nonsense?

OK. 70% of whom? Oh, it turns out to be those who phoned in to the station, following the interview they gave to Spanish TV. So, in true scientific, objective, reliably monitored fashion, we now know that 70% of those who saw the broadcast, AND who felt strongly enough to phone in, don’t believe the McCann’s account of  the circumstances surrouinding the disappearance of their daughter.

So here’s another statistic. 100% of those who phoned in are no wiser than the rest of us about what happened. Here’s another. 100% of those who phoned in have less information than the least informed policeman on the outer margins of an enquiry that has had its own very public shortcomings. And for good measure, here’s another. 100% of those who phoned in have no idea what it might be like to be a parent whose child is abducted, to not know if she is alive, and to live with the kind of cruel stupidity that allows editors to publish such verbal mince as in the public interest, or even as news. When will the public tumble to the fact that completely uninformed opinion solicited for a phone-in poll, has no evidential value whatsoever. Its value is to encourage a mindset that thinks public opinion is itself evidence. The old-fashioned name for doing justice by polling the ignorant, and deciding on guilt by subjective opinion, was lynching.

The McCanns have been in the news now for over six months. They may or may not be telling the whole truth – how can any of us know. But until the truth is discovered, it is better not to condemn people with innuendo, public poll, trial by media, or any of the other processes that threaten that fundamental right that no one should have taken away – the right not to be condemned by blind prejudice – the word prejudice is interesting with a hyphen inserted; it then reads "pre-judice", that is, to judge before the evidence is heard.

I lament the loss of fairness as an important strand in the fabric of our social security. One of these days those who unfairly accuse, who practice prejudice, may find themselves judged, not for what they have done, but merely on the basis of what someone else who doesn’t know them, thought about them.

And in all of this, a wee girl is missing.

Lord have mercy.