Where are our standards?

I don’t know, maybe I’m getting all middle aged and moaning about the state of our society but this morning, via the wonders of Jeremy Vine & Twitter, I read this article about Kate & Gerry McGann and their treatment by the papers after the disappearance of their daughter Madeline.
It’s quite shocking reading and paints a picture of a media industry that is totally out of control. It has become clear through the recent inquiries that the phone hacking scandal and the methods used by the News of the World are not isolated to that paper. (although anyone who has ever read the daily mail would never had doubted that anyway…). And it makes me wonder what on earth we as a nation are coming to? What on earth would make someone stoop so low as to accuse a couple who have lost a child of selling her into slavery? Is this industry so far gone that there is no come back? do people not think about the individuals involved? It seems their only focus is selling as many papers as possible and making as much money as possible.
Of course, I read this via The Guardian, and in the same way as I was prompted by a tweet, others are prompted to more sensational articles in other papers and online. It’s not just the press, we, the common people, want to read it too. Have we all become brainwashed into thinking that reading about someone elses tragedy and being encouraged to form judgements on those people, is ok? and not just judgements either. I remember in the aftermath of the disappearnace of Madeline the number of conversations at the school gate, how did it happen…? did they? didnt they? all fuelled by the media frenzy surrounding it. And it’s not just this story, there is plenty of it. That’s why I dislike the Daily Mail, it just gives people half the facts, makes a few snide suggestions and then incites people to believe them.

In Dawkins book ‘God Delusion’ he says that we do not get our morals from religion, or from God, but it’s interesting that as our nation becomes less Christian, moral standards are falling, in some cases rather rapidly.