No need to know

With a missing persons case already in the news - that of Ann Marie Shirran, a second missing woman in the St. John’s area raised alarm bells with many.

The day after she returned home, the police held a news conference to simply say they wouldn’t be saying anything more about the disappearance.

They said there was nothing criminal about her disappearance, and therefore they would respect the family’s privacy.

Personally, I was a bit ticked off at that explanation at first. Reports of her return said she stumbled onto her street exhausted and dehydrated. What was up with that?

Some online comments said Ms. Goodyear and her family owe the public an explanation. After all, the family turned to the public through the media when she first went missing.

So if one turns to the media in a time of need, does one necessarily owe something to the media once the problem has been resolved?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized the answer is no.

The case of Ms. Goodyear has many parallels with case of a New Brunswick woman with ties to the southwest coast from earlier in the year. In both cases a woman went missing and an immediate outcry from her family caught the media’s attention.

In both cases, the woman’s name and picture was widely publicized.

In the case of the New Brunswick woman, the truth came out that she had been held captive. Just days after her escape, a judge ordered a publication ban on her name.

Will her privacy be protected by the ban? Not really. The details of the case against the accused will come out, and everyone will remember exactly who the victim was and where she was from.

The case of Samantha Goodyear is sort of the opposite. While her name will also remain in people’s minds, the details of her disappearance will likely never be known by most, nor do we need to know.

Using the media in a missing persons case may be effective, but it comes with the price of a certain fame, or at least a loss of privacy. What matters in both cases is that the women were found alive and relatively unharmed. The public should be satisfied with that.