Her name was Nykea Aldridge
It’s not just the Olympics. Even when a woman is murdered, she’s reported as Relative of Famous Athlete Man. Being murdered is a lot worse than being disappeared in the reporting of your murder, but still – it’s an extra indignity, and it’s not great for the murdered woman’s loved ones, either.
The headline: Two Chicago brothers on parole charged in murder of NBA star’s cousin
That’s an appalling headline.
First para:
Chicago police on Sunday said they have arrested two brothers and charged them with the fatal shooting of basketball star Dwyane Wade’s cousin as she pushed a baby in a stroller, a murder that has stunned a city plagued by a surge in gang-related violence.
Still bad. Puts the basketball star first, and leaves the murdered woman as just a nameless “cousin.”
The story doesn’t get to her until the second paragraph:
In a case that has emerged as a talking point in the U.S. presidential race, Darwin Sorrells Jr., 26, and Derren Sorrells, 22, are facing charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the death of Nykea Aldridge, a 32-year-old mother of four, police said.
I get that more people will read it if there’s a famous person hook, but then more people will read a story on climate change if you put a photo of Kim Kardashian at the top, too, and that’s not a reason to do it.
I’ve tried four times to compose a comment about this which contains some sort of insight but all I have is sheer blank system error.
Don’t treat people as things. All I’ve got.
And the people that read purely because they saw a murder headline and a famous person’s name are the same people that drop the story as soon as they see the famous person is fine. The editing staff here just want the clicks.
I will note that in most cases, headlines don’t contain names at all, especially of crime victims. That info is usually in the lead paragraph, or at most a deck headline. More often, the headline uses a generic descriptor like, “Mother of two” or “Brooks High student” or whatever. The feeling is that the name isn’t going to mean anything to the reader, so you try to give them a two- to three-word descriptor that will sum them up and get people to care. If the case becomes a heater, where you repeatedly hear the victim’s name, it’ll come up more often in follow-up news headlines, though. Forcing the celebrity angle is where it gets weird.
It does work in reverse, too–when Jennifer Hudson’s family was shot by her estranged ex, you didn’t see the names of her mother, brother and nephew in the headlines, initially–just hers.
I know. Even “NBA star” didn’t get his name in the headline. But I think the descriptor should be about the victim, not the victim’s cousin. I realize that the “NBA star’s cousin” was probably used so that people would recognize the story…but still.
A Black American woman pushing a stroller is shot dead by a random gun-toting felon?
If it wasn’t for the NBA connection this wouldn’t have made the news. And THAT’S a whole ‘nother layer of disgusting.
That too, of course.