Features rs Pickton Trial in the Sh ES New West Campus A guide to the sensational media coverage Travis Paterson, Features Editor As students enter the main entrance off 8 street, the eerie headlines of the Vancouver dailies stare back from the newspaper boxes, a haunting reminder of the horrors and tragedies unraveling at the B.C. Supreme Court, a stones’ throw from Douglas’ New Westminster campus. The first weeks of Robert Pickton’s murder trial were sensationalized by the various dailies, dominating the front pages, with each paper finding their own disturbing angle to distance themselves from the rest. The pace of trial coverage has already slowed but there will be no shortage of colourful headlines popping up at regular intervals throughout the course of the trial. Anything and everything is a target in the battle to win readers and its important to reflect on the underlying stories, and not on the poorly executed tactics of avoidance by the accused Pickton. Pickton’s case is Canada’s most notorious murder trial since Paul Bernardo, and the coldest in B.C. since Clifford Olson. The story of the missing sex trade workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the gory details of their end on a pig farm have put national and international media coverage at the heart of an otherwise tranquil business district. In fact, in the initial stages so many journalists flooded to the courts that by parking in the area they limited the access to local small businesses, in some cases threatening their livelihood. While the initial shock of the trial seems to have passed, we’ve seen the first six weeks. The trial is estimated to take at least one year. Among the throng of media agents covering the court proceedings are two former sex trade workers from Vancouver’s downtown eastside, Trisha Baptie and Pauline VanKoll, who were hired on behalf of Orato.com, a news site, “Featuring First Person, Citizen Journalism from Around the World.” Baptie and VanKoll attend the trials and offer updates through their own perspective, a blend of the modern blog era and the traditional editorial approach. From their time on the street both Baptie and VanKoll claim they were acquainted with all 26 of the victims Pickton is charged with murdering, plus many of the women on the missingwomen.net. If we're to learn anything real from the events that link women from the downtown eastside to the pig farm it will be from these two women. Their insight focuses on the tragedy and grief, and the acceptance and understanding of the victims’ friends and families. The kinds of insight that our society can use to build better communities in our expanding urban population. Despite charges for 26 victims, Pickton is currently only on trial for the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Marnie Frey, Georgina Papin and Brenda Wolfe. For now, the media is littering their coverage with references to the evidence of how Joesbury’s and Abotsway’s mutilated bodies were discovered in white five- gallon plastic pails in a chest freezer at Pickton’s farm. Gruesome evidence such as the latter was discovered in other forms, such as the finding of victims’ jaw adow i) bones with teeth still attached, laying in the pig feed trough, suggesting Pickton used a horrific method of disposal. The majority of facts like this have already surfaced and it’s believed the worst has been revealed, suggesting a change from the sensational media response to an introspective look at the lives of the victims. Yeah right. As for what we can expect from the media in the next year, it’s a new low (or high) in the amount of gory evidence used as story bait. Not to say that it is wrong to censor the coverage by any means, but it’s a good chance to examine how the different papers are using instances of the trial’s ultra-violence to draw interest to an otherwise already- been-done story. You won’t find an exhausting detail of regurgitated material about the trial in this paper, but if you do want some real insight, I suggest Baptie’s and VonKoll’s comments at Orato.com.