"If it Bleeds, it Leads"

The Urban Dictionary describes this saying by stating that it "basically means the the media loves violence." This is not only true now, but also back in 1888 when the Star began to cover the story of "Jack the Ripper." Now, for those of you who know me well, you know I have a fascination with the story of Jack the Ripper so you knew he would come into play with my blogging at some point.

Readers, usually my post has something to do with class, but it being "spring" break, I felt like doing something different that really has nothing to do with class. This is going to be more of a historical kind of blog which I hope you enjoy.

Like I said, I love the story of Jack. I was watching this show with my mom and it was about his impact on the media. I thought, how perfect I can blog about this. So I grabbed a pen and paper and took some notes!

Before I get into anything, I have found that some people do not know who Jack the Ripper is so here's a Wiki link and you can read all about him. In short, he was a sadistic killer who targeted prostitutes in Whitechapel, England in the late 1800s and was never caught....

The Star was an up-and-coming newspaper who's targeted audience was people that could not read very well. Desperate to increase profit, they linked two murders to others that had been reported. Creating this lie, the Star's circulation dramaticly increased. At this time, integrity was not considered.... This new sadistic killer took a break and that resulted in a drop of sales for the Star.... so what to do? Oh, I know! - let's make a fake letter and publish it!

The name "Jack the Ripper" did not become a label to the public until someone from the inside of newspaper, Mr. Best a journalists, wrote a fake letter to the company. This letter is known as the "Dear Boss Letter."

The letter lacks "personality" and the content of the letter is "too perfect" for a newspaper trying to sell a top story (Note: the Star was the ONLY newspaper that published this letter....). Also, if you look at the signature, it's as if the signer forgot who he was; the "r" at the end seems to be almost forgotten. In addition, the signature is the same script as the body of the letter. So again, integrity did not exist during this time. This was the beginning of the circulation of the name we all know now as "Jack the Ripper." At the time, this was a somewhat "provocative" name because the name "Jack" was very common in children's books and mainstream society as having a "clean and innocent" connotation at the time and the name "Ripper".... well, I don't need to go into that because I think you got it.

This letter, however, is the REAL letter Jack the Ripper wrote to a Mr. Lusk who was the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee:

This letter is laced with personality and there is a creepy look to the letter that pretty much authenticates the letter with no analysis. This was postmarked on the 15th of October 1888 after the murder of Catherine Eddowes. Oh, I almost forgot to say... if you are able to read his writing, Jack says that he sent half of this woman's kidney and the other half.... he eat and said it was "very nice."

Not only did the media fabricate letters, but also suspects. Some of the candidates were: Walter Sicket (an artist), Lewis Carroll (author of Alice In Wonderland), the Duke of Clarence (the grandson of Queen Victoria), and lastly the Jews (who get blamed for everything sadly [even back then!!]...) and Irish.

So when you see those crazy newspapers and television shows that fabricate stories.... you can thank Jack the Ripper for being the pioneer of tabloid media! I find it fascinating that though Jack the Ripper prowled the streets of Whitechapel so long ago, he still lingers in the media from time to time. One of many examples, a few years ago Derek Brown copied Jack by killing women in the same manner; however, he was caught. As the saying goes, "often imitated, never duplicated."

I am trying to find out what show I saw and once I do, I will tell you!

sARAH