II. The Press
When the press covered the Ripper killings they used cultural fantasies and Victorian anxieties to their advantage by challenging the police and fascinating the public. They wove a tale of sex, blood, and murder, which would forever change murder in the news. This sensationalism operated on an emotional level, appealing to the morals of the reader. David Sachsman and David Bulla summarize sensationalism in the press in their book Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting: “The core elements of visual sensationalism in the press were in place during the late nineteenth century, with violence and death, crime and punishment, sex and scandal—sometimes lurid, often gratuitous—becoming …show more content…
Only a small article appeared in The Eastern Post on Saturday, April 7th, four days after her death: “On Thursday the London Hospital informed the coroner of the death of Emma Elizabeth Smith, aged 45, a widow...she was set upon by some men and severely maltreated. The men made off, and have not yet been apprehended. She was subsequently conveyed to the hospital where she died.” This shows Smith’s death was not regarded as extraordinary, because in “1887, two hundred brothels in East London were closed…render[ing] thousands of women homeless, hence vulnerable to attack.” The next day, an article in Lloyd 's Weekly News added to the case. The article stated that Smith said on her way to the hospital that “she had been shockingly maltreated by a number of men and robbed of all the money she had.” There was no witness to the attack to corroborate this; however, a few people did see Smith early that morning “talking to a man in a black dress, wearing a white neckerchief.” This statement was one of the few witness accounts the press recorded for this case; the evidence pointing to a well-dressed
When the press covered the Ripper killings they used cultural fantasies and Victorian anxieties to their advantage by challenging the police and fascinating the public. They wove a tale of sex, blood, and murder, which would forever change murder in the news. This sensationalism operated on an emotional level, appealing to the morals of the reader. David Sachsman and David Bulla summarize sensationalism in the press in their book Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting: “The core elements of visual sensationalism in the press were in place during the late nineteenth century, with violence and death, crime and punishment, sex and scandal—sometimes lurid, often gratuitous—becoming …show more content…
Only a small article appeared in The Eastern Post on Saturday, April 7th, four days after her death: “On Thursday the London Hospital informed the coroner of the death of Emma Elizabeth Smith, aged 45, a widow...she was set upon by some men and severely maltreated. The men made off, and have not yet been apprehended. She was subsequently conveyed to the hospital where she died.” This shows Smith’s death was not regarded as extraordinary, because in “1887, two hundred brothels in East London were closed…render[ing] thousands of women homeless, hence vulnerable to attack.” The next day, an article in Lloyd 's Weekly News added to the case. The article stated that Smith said on her way to the hospital that “she had been shockingly maltreated by a number of men and robbed of all the money she had.” There was no witness to the attack to corroborate this; however, a few people did see Smith early that morning “talking to a man in a black dress, wearing a white neckerchief.” This statement was one of the few witness accounts the press recorded for this case; the evidence pointing to a well-dressed