It’s good to see some public response to Bailey Junior Kurariki’s unfolding story. I must admit that when I saw his angry outbursts early in May, making his way in and out of court, I was instantly hostile towards him, and expressed the hope that he’d get “a heavy sentence.”

Later, I had to admit, that that was not a very helpful reaction,especially given what it revealed about the image of him that I was holding on to. Basically, I was still seeing him as a “killer,” and this latest charge was significantly different.

Fast-forward now to the last week of May, and Bailey Junior is sentenced. This time there were no angry gestures or obscenities. In the end, the judge’s sentence seemed reasonably fair, even lenient. End of story, at least for now.

But what about this: I discovered that I’m not the only one who is too easily condemnatory.  You see, at least on the channel I was watching last week, they didn’t simply give us the footage of Bailey Junior “on the day” – they had just as much, if not more footage from his first appearance almost a month earlier!

Why they did that, I don’t know. What I’m left thinking, however, is that by using that old footage, they certainly weren’t merely “telling the story” or “giving the facts” from the day. No, they were promoting an angle, nuancing this man’s story to create a negative, even hostile reaction to him. In short, Bailey Junior wasn’t just sentenced in court, another much harsher sentence was pronounced on him by the news channel I was watching – this young man, they declared by adding that old footage, will always be like this! In this instance, the media were branding him, criminalizing him, pitching his story their way, and it was a way that was quite condemnatory of him

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