Previously | School of hard Knox: For the British press no one is ever truly innocent whatever courts say...
Louise Woodward has another name and another life. She was 18 when she became the first British person to have their trial broadcast on US television. It’s 25 years since there was a justification to publish a new picture of her in a newspaper. But today The Daily Mirror carried paparazzi pictures of the 43-year-old in a supermarket car park with the headline 'Killer Nanny' Louise Woodward pictured 25 years after baby Matthew Eappen's death
I want to look at that ‘news’ story to examine an aspect of the British tabloid mentality and the ugly confluence of public interest journalism and things that simply interest the public.
Last month, Channel 4 broadcast a three-part documentary on the Woodward case, The Killer Nanny: Did She Do It? The announcement that the programme was on the schedule prompted The Daily Mail and MailOnline to publish pictures of Woodward in August 2021 ('Killer nanny' Louise Woodward, 43, is seen for first time after it was revealed Channel 4 are making new documentary…).
The Mirror hooks its story on the 25th anniversary of the trial, but it’s likely that there was a more prosaic reason. In the print version, it’s presented as a “picture exclusive”, occupying two-thirds of page 13, and online the image is credited to the photo agency SplashNews.
The picture is the story and what it shows is a woman carrying her shopping to her car, unaware that she is being papped. The combination of the Channel 4 series and the anniversary of the trial has created a market for pictures of Louise Woodward once again and a cynical snapper has filled it.
In the British tabloid mindset, the picture alone is enough to justify the coverage. And the Mirror is confident that a dance teacher in Shropshire doesn’t have any way of meaningfully objecting. Taking the tone usually reserved for tenuous celebrity stories, reporter Martin Fricker writes:
Wearing a coat over cropped gym legging and with a Covid mask under her chin, Louise… cuts an unremarkable figure.
In print, the picture caption takes the same line: “She looks like any other busy mum.” Perhaps that’s because she is like any other busy mum.
The attempt to turn this mundane scene — a woman with her shopping in a supermarket car park — into something profound continues:
… 25 years ago, as Louise Woodward, she was known across the world after becoming embroiled in an infamous child death case in America.
Now aged 43, she teaches dance classes and happily mingles with fellow mums on the school run.
One neighbour said: “She’s lived here for years. Everyone knows her past but she’s just another mum to us.”
The implication of this copy is she should introduce herself as “the killer nanny” and deny herself any normal interaction.
In the tabloid world, time doesn’t pass normally. You’re supposed to be “shocked” to discover that someone looks different with age and quietly appalled that their life continued once it ceased to be a source of stories.
As usual, there’s also the special kind of tabloid amnesia, the pretence that things happened without the press getting involved. “[Woodward] was dubbed the ‘Killer Nanny’” writes Fricker, seemingly bamboozled by who exactly came up with that name.
In today’s print edition, The Mirror reproduced its front pages from the day Woodward was released (Freed!) and when it secured an interview with her (My Agony By Louise) but curiously neglected to include the one from earlier in that campaign when it printed the White House’s phone number and encouraged readers to call Bill Clinton (Now Call Clinton) or its truly tasteless 2007 effort (Tot Killer: I Want To Have Child).
The Woodward trial was real-life and trauma as entertainment for the tabloids and a post-Diana philosophy puzzle for the broadsheets. A quarter of a century on, the British press still considers Woodward a character of its creation, there to be picked up and scrutinised, pinned like a peculiar butterfly.
Woodward now goes by her married name — which I’ve deliberately not used here — and has an 8-year-old child of her own. I doubt she’ll ever forget the events of 25 years ago but the newspapers will make sure that never happens. The Daily Mirror’s story has cascaded across its parent company Reach’s local news sites and been rewritten by its competitors.
You see it’s vital that we know that Louise Woodward can live with herself and be able to judge her for it. It’s important that we see her leaving a supermarket or getting into her car and think: “How could she? How can she?” There is no room in the lexicon of the tabloids for rehabilitation and redemption.
It’s no accident that the Mirror’s piece pulls this quote from an interview Woodward gave 15 years ago…
I am entitled to enjoy my life. I am not going to apologise for being happy.
… and has left the comments open online. Anger is a very effective driver of engagement.
The tabloids want their “killer nanny” to chase; they want a return on that mid-90s investment forever. It’s a way of thinking that is so ingrained in the British press that it passes largely without comment. It’s a mindset of revenge; a kind of red top purgatory.
Louise Woodward has a new name and a new life but that’s not good enough for the tabloids. Don’t you see? She went outside. She kept on living. She’s still alive. Her sentence isn’t allowed to end before the obituary.