Identity Failure

One of the last acts of a violent year in Surrey was the beating death of a woman meeting her son at a hockey rink.  A tragedy for all concerned.  But what doesn’t help matters at all, in my opinion, is the constant and ubiquitous description of the victim by media of all types as “hockey mom” as if that is all that needed to be said about her.

I bet that is not how her family knew her, or her friends.  I’m sure she was a person with a variety of interests and skills and beliefs. But every single headline, in the press, on TV, and on radio, referred to her as the hockey mom victim. So that is the limited and limiting way in which she will be known.

The media should think a lot more deeply about the consequences of their own laziness.