The death of Jason Arday and the statements made by his family compel us to examine the seriousness of disguising public media lynching as a search for truth in certain media outlets and on social media. The University of Cambridge published a statement expressing its support for his family after learning the tragic news of his death. His family had publicly denounced a sustained campaign of abuse and disinformation and said that the pressure on him had become extremely severe. The police have not yet disclosed the cause of his death.
There is abundant scientific evidence of the consequences that persistent harassment, public humiliation, cyberbullying and other forms of interpersonal violence can have on health and well-being. When, for days or months, a person is turned into the constant target of accusations, ridicule and exposure before mass audiences, the potential harm ceases to be an abstract issue and can have tangible consequences for health. A democracy needs information and investigative journalism, but these must never result in a trial by media or a public lynching. It needs to uncover wrongdoing, verify information and hold those exercising public functions to account. But investigating is not the same as condemning; informing is not humiliating; and verifying facts does not mean permitting or encouraging public lynchings.
Trials by media reproduce a profoundly anti-democratic and inhumane logic
First, a person is publicly singled out, and then a crowd is invited to judge them, thereby undermining one of the essential foundations of democracy: the separation of powers, with the media assuming a role that belongs to the justice system. Social media, together with journalists who prioritise audience figures over the pursuit of truth, amplify this dynamic even further, turning accusations into spectacle and audiences into improvised tribunals. Alan Rusbridger, journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, argues in his recent article “Jason Arday was a victim of the worst kind of media pile-on” that the former Cambridge professor was subjected to a relentless media campaign against him. According to Rusbridger, his death should teach us an important lesson about the need to retain a sense of proportion and the most basic humanity. There must be no more “death by a thousand headlines”.
It is the contemporary equivalent of putting someone on display in the public square while those gathered around cheer their downfall. None of this means denying that the allegations against Arday should have been investigated, but they should have been investigated through the appropriate procedures, with proper safeguards and confidentiality — not through the media or on social networks. A rigorous investigation should seek the truth while simultaneously protecting the procedural guarantees, dignity and rights of everyone involved. Society’s right to know the facts does not require the public destruction of the person under investigation.
The case also compels us to ask difficult questions. What could the institution have done to investigate while, at the same time, protecting a person who may have been in a particularly vulnerable situation? What responsibility do those reporting the story have to avoid repeated exposure and the serious suffering it can cause? What responsibility does a certain kind of audience bear when it stops seeking information and begins participating in collective humiliation?
Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are pillars of democracy precisely because they make it possible to investigate those in power and uncover the truth. They should not be used as justification for depriving other people of equally fundamental rights. Nor can the defence of justice become a licence to inflict violence.
Feminism knows only too well the consequences of public trials without safeguards. For centuries, women labelled immoral, liars, witches or transgressors were socially condemned before anyone was willing to listen to their voices. For that reason, public lynching can never be considered a feminist practice, regardless of who the person being targeted is. Replacing safeguards with the crowd, evidence with suspicion, and justice with social punishment is profoundly anti-feminist, inhumane and anti-democratic.
A democratic society can investigate facts without destroying people. It can demand accountability without humiliating them. It can seek the truth without turning anyone into a spectacle. And when we forget that distinction, we cease to practise justice and begin to practise violence.
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