Today I was looking through the NineMSN news website to catch up on what’s going on in the world around me and headlining international news, was an article dubbed Naomi Campbell admits receiving diamonds. Though a bit dubious about this headlining international news (surely there is more to the world than Naomi’s diamonds?), I do admit I love gossip as much as the next person so I decided to check it out.
To my surprise, it was actually an article on the trial of Charles Taylor that Naomi Campbell was called up to testify. The article spends a very huge four lines informing me that Taylor is up for 11 counts of war crimes from the Sierra Leone civil war and allegedly illegally mined blood diamonds to help arm rebel militia who murdered, raped and maimed Sierra Leone civilians. The rest of the relatively long article was spent telling me that Naomi was bored with the trial, what Naomi wore and the fact that Naomi was quite perplexed and concerned over who sent her a bag of diamonds.
I decided to run a search and see what else I can find out about the trial and the war as it did seem quite interesting. Typing “Charles Taylor trial” into the search bar, the first 10 hits had 8 relevant articles, consisting of 6 Naomi Campbell articles, one on some guy associated with Taylor who apparently sacrificed children and ate their hearts and only one that actually gives some information on the progress of the trial and Taylor’s involvement in the civil war.
At first, I was unfazed by how trivial the issue was made to look. We all know from our lectures that the media focuses on what is deemed to be interesting and with the world’s obsession with celebrities, it came as no surprise that anything Naomi Campbell would be considered a hit (just look at what happened when she attacked her assistant!). However, I was sorely disappointed that there was so very little attention given to the actual trial. Even a search of the site unearthed very little.
While war crime is interesting, it is also extremely serious and the details heavy. Thus, it seems like Nine decided to dumb down the proceedings by focussing on Naomi, making it appear the trial is simply incidental and she is the central focus with scant tidbits of information on actual proceedings scattered throughout. It implies that audiences have little interest in the actual trial and prefer to stare at a supermodel instead and that is what the media chooses to cater to.
Despite this detailed scrutiny of her involvement, she actually played a minimal role. Her evidence was about what was speculated to be uncut blood diamonds given anonymously to her in her hotel room and virtually did not affect proceedings at all. Despite this, she was made out to be the star witness to the heinous crimes Taylor was accused of in order to attract the general public. The focus on Naomi makes events a lot easier to digest and turns away from the heavy nature of the real trial and other evidence that may tell horrific, disturbing stories of a violent, bloody civil war.
However, at the end of the day, it sadly turns a terrible event in history into nothing more than a bit of gossip on the movements of some British model.
Corder, M., "Charles Taylor Opens War Crimes Defense", 9 News, 13th July
O'leary, W., 2008, "Militia Ex-Leader Confesses to Child Sacrifice", 9 News, 22nd Jan
"Naomi Campbell Admits Receiving Diamonds", 9 News, 6th Aug, 2010
