Madoff: People Just Can’t Get Enough…

by allison ~ March 13, 2009

It’s been a while since America had such a great villain. In the recent past, there was Eliot Spitzer and President George W. Bush.  And then of course you remember Osama Bin Laden (”Wanted Dead or Alive” from the New York Post).  It comes in waves, the collective hatred Americans project on the one person who exemplifies all the world’s troubles for the moment.  Today, it’s Mr. Bernard Madoff.

It was not until December 12, 2008 that the public started to understand the magnitude of Bernard Madoff’s historic Ponzi scandal.  The coverage of this case is splashed across the front page of newspapers daily and continues making headlines. Most recently, on March 2, 2009, New York Magazine’s cover featured a picture of Madoff as the joker and the words “Bernie Madoff, Monster.”

On March 12, according to The New York Times, “He admitted his guilt for the first time in public, and apologized to his victims, dozens of whom were squeezed into the courtroom benches behind him, before being handcuffed and led away to jail to await sentencing.”   Madoff, who started his new life in jail yesterday, will remain in prison until his sentencing, but certainly that will not stop people from talking about him.

The media coverage of this case continues to gain momentum — more victims want to be heard; but it has also taken on a sadistic spin by the press.  Should Madoff be tortured?  Are we now a country that condones - that seeks - to give a monster what he deserves?

TIME features an article by Nancy Gibbs expressing what she believes to be considered fair punishment. Gibbs goes as far to say, “Maybe there needs to be a camera in his cell, so that victims can watch him pace and prowl and go slowly mad with boredom. And he should be able to see them too.”

Also in the TIME article, Elie Wiesel suggests, “…there be a screen on which would appear in relentless accusation the faces of his victims, “one after the other after the other, always saying, ‘Look, look what you have done’ … He should not be able to avoid those faces, for years to come.”

 I know these suggestions are sensationalist, and yes, he cheated many people out of billions of dollars, but the energy around this screams of a world gone mad to me.  Maybe America just needs someone to vilify, but does it make anything better?

Allison Berger is on staff at Mediashop Public Relations and holds a BA in Communications Studies from University of Iowa.