Conditioning the public’s mind, whether intentionally or unintentionally
Very often, the public’s view about a story or issue is conditioned by the initial messages – overt, subliminal, intentional or unintentional – that they get about it.
This is was the first message most of us got about the events that led to the death of a 15-year-old girl in the presence of her teacher: two photographs which make them look exactly the same age, in which the man looks like a boy and nothing like he does in real life now, and a headline that tells us “two young people” have gone missing.
Had the newspapers used a current photograph of Erin Tanti, and had they used the accurate news headline, ‘Teacher goes missing with pupil’, then people would not have been conditioned the way they have been.
It would also have put the ‘missing person’ report in its proper perspective. The police were looking for Erin Tanti and Lisa Marie Zahra not as missing persons but as abductor and abducted. That would have been immediately obvious had the headline been ‘teacher and pupil’.
The initial newspaper reports are particularly disturbing, in retrospect, because now we know that the reporters working for them knew exactly who Erin Tanti was when he went missing and they received that ‘missing person’ photograph from the police.
Yet for some reason they failed to recognise this news story for what it was, failed to give the public the details that this was a teacher and pupil, failed to explain to readers that this was the drama teacher and actor they had interviewed so often in their pages and to whom they gave so much favourable coverage, and failed too to replace the photograph they were given with one of what he actually looks like – a grown man, bearded and balding.
The comments on this image show that they were in Bugibba at lunchtime on Tuesday. He kept her out for the next 15 hours, and at 4am drove her to the cliffs, knowing that there was a search on for her.
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This guy is part of a new brand of coolness!
Anyone who was anti establishment is now part of this new wave of coolness, part of this new brand.
They even sponsored him, major brands too.
After the election people like this sick bastard walked around feeling all liberated and thought they could do anything they liked.
They did
I cannot find the words to say how right you are. This comment should be laser-engraved on City Gate or something.
Maybe the other prisoners at Corradino will realize what a cool dork this guy is once he arrives to serve his sentence.
I am sure he will impress the bejeezus out of them right away.
I hope that, if eventually imprisoned, that true justice will be served.
Anyone who was anti-establishment is now part of the establishment.
The reporters who first broke the news were trying to pull the wool over their readers’ eyes.
No, that was yet another case of journalistic passivity and incompetence. The journalists here simply relay onwards information that they receive verbatim, and without question.
Journalism in Malta is pathetically irresponsible.
Alex La said that he saw them in Bugibba, both wearing green parka coats.
If someone close, wears the same style of clothes as I do, I’d think he’s ‘obsessed’.
Another dis-service to the public by the newspapers that published those photos.
As a minimum it strikes me as odd that anyone would ask the public’s help in finding a missing person by putting up a photo which does not resemble their current likeness at all. Unless of course there was suspicion he’d shaved.
Shaved? There are several photos of him online where he’s bald and beardless.
The police released the photos together, implying at thet went missing together. The fact that she was a pupil and he her teacher was crucial information. Had that fact been made known at the outset, the outcome might have been different.
Even if the police did not mention that Tanti was Zahra’s teacher, the news reports should have looked into the story and published that critical fact. Zahra didn’t only teach at St Michael’s. He also taught at Masquerade where Lisa Maria Zahra was a pupil.
Both institutions should carefully reassess their staff if they want to ensure the safety of the pupils who will still be entrusted to their care.
The photo of Erin Tanti shows him as totally different from what he looks like and makes it impossible for someone to recognise him (unless they knew him already), which rather defeats the purpose.
When I first saw these photos I did note how remarkably boyish he looks for 23. It never occurred to me that it was an old photo.
No, of course it didn’t occur to you. Why would it? It seems logical to issue a recent photo, but that should have been spelled out.
If the objective of the report was to help identify Tanti, it should have included the fact that he was known as a teacher at a private school and at a theatre school, and as a performer – all relevant facts that could have helped identify him in time to save another person’s life.
“When I first saw these photos I did note how remarkably boyish he looks for 23”
My reaction was to subconsciously assume that the age of 23 was a typo. For quite some time I remained under the impression that this tragedy involved two teenagers and was shocked when I saw a real photograph of him and only then realised that an adult was involved.
The picture seems to have made more impression than the words. I don’t know whether that’s just me or it is perhaps common for people to be more affected by a picture than descriptive text.
Is that the photo on his ID card? Would the age on the photo have been checked against the current age?
If not, why was it selected? Does the Times of Malta have no time for a bit of research?
Any editorial considerations towards this selection?
About as much use as a photo of the ultrasound scan of his foetus.