Amanda Knox has been acquitted of murder in Perugia. And now it falls to the great British public to decide who actually committed the crime.
Or at least you could be forgiven for thinking it does, based on the number of media outlets today who have been asking readers and viewers for their 'thoughts' on the story.
How is this going to help?
Have they simply forgotten that the British public's collective crimefighting consciousness tends not to stretch beyond whether somebody 'looks a bit shifty'.
Media circus
Of course the presenters will read out some words of sympathy for the parents of Meredith Kercher, adding that the tragic loss of their daughter has been entirely overshadowed by the media circus surrounding 'Foxy', but that's not really why they open up such stories to the public. They are the media circus and they want to get back to 'Foxy' as quickly as possible.
They want theories. They want cliches. Despite her proven innocence, they want to hear 'there's no smoke without fire' so they can "now go live" to their self-fulfilling prophecy correspondent outside Perugia airport and say "from what we're hearing this morning it sounds as though speculation is going to follow Amanda Knox all the way back to the US".
Do seasoned broadcasters and journalists really think the super-sleuths of suburbia will have this cracked by lunchtime?
Of course not.
"We've just had an email from Terry Smith in Wolverhampton who says he's uncovered some overlooked DNA evidence which proves beyond doubt who actually did it..."
It isn't going to happen.
More likely they will get endless speculation, questions and comments with which to feed the hungry rolling news beast.
Better still, they will be able to rope in some 'experts' to trawl through the public's offerings.
By throwing the question open to the public we learn nothing more than editors need more words to go with their pictures. Their many, many pictures of 'Foxy Knoxy'.
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