12 Dead in Daytime Paris Attack at Satirical Magazine

[Magda Hassan]

What I find interesting is the stage management of the witnesses. In the recent Lindt cafe in Sydney hostage event I heard that all the surviving hostages and witnesses are not allowed to talk to the media. Under whose authority I don't know. But there are usually many personal interest stories about victims of crimes or even their friends and neighbours but there is nothing. I also understand that not everyone wants to talk to the media and that they are just ordinary people and not 'celebrities'. But there is nothing. They've had the burials, had the vigil, had the #illridewithyou hash tag, all the boquets have been collected and everyone has gone home and we all live happily ever after. Never to be mentioned again except in the past tense as some thing that once happened. We don't know the names of the other hostages or how they are doing how their injuries are healing. We don't know who shot whom. No ballistics. No reports. Nothing. Same in the French case. We know there were 12 killed - 2 policemen - 4 cartoonists/journalists. We don't know who the other 6 people are. I've seen a couple of short interviews with family members of the dead. That is all. So much media and so little information. Just the same video clips played over and over and the same talking points by the talking heads.