Fuelled by a police publicity stunt that can only be seen as an effort to pander to populist sentiment, and certain parts of a media world that played its own tabloid part, the comments accompanying the reports of the arraignment last night of the alleged animal crucifier were nothing short of disgusting hysteria. To its credit, this portal moderates and kicks out the really bad stuff, so you can imagine what it was like over on the other places.

Obviously, but it has to be said because otherwise I'll be crucified myself as an animal torturer, cruelty to animals, and behaviour such as nailing dead puppies or kittens to church walls, is to be condemned outright and the police have a duty to investigate and prosecute.

That said, the police have an equal, frankly more important, duty to carry out their investigations sensitively and without playing to the slavering gallery. Arraigning individuals in the glare of publicity and dramatically at night, when it is pretty damn clear that such individuals need help, and urgently, rather than dragged virtually (and literally, to a degree) through a jeering crowd, is not the way to carry out this duty.

The media, too, has its duty, a duty to ensure that the police do theirs. This duty is not carried out by becoming willing dance partners in a circus tango that seemed to constitute more a sop to unseemly public curiosity than proper delivery of information to a concerned public. Mug shots of the accused, so help me, are not exactly the type of reportage (again, not by this paper) that militates towards an appropriate search for truth and justice.

These two pillars of the rule of law failed on Thursday evening, with the result that in the blogosphere, in the comments sections under the online reports and on social media (Facebook for the uninitiated in the jargon) something approaching a lynch-mob developed.

In a parallel news-cycle, the one relating to the tragic events in Dingli, the same sort of media irresponsibility, from the same quarters, was evident, in their failure to moderate comments more than in the mainstream reporting, though even here, some houses need putting in order. The bereaved family, while going through an unimaginably horrific experience, was forced to react and tell people to shut up and stop indulging their prurient instincts.

Perhaps these two cases could serve as object lessons to the people responsible for the media, a wake-up call that might indicate that it's time for people to told what to do with their inane comments and moronic opinions. Fine, let there be as much debate as anyone wants under opinion pieces like this, that's what they're for, but not about tragedies that affect the lives of real people. And perhaps for the mainstream, it is time to take step back from feeding the frenzied pack, the gossips who think that their curiosity constitutes some sort of right to know every little detail and that their right to an opinion translates to a right to spew it, however idiotic it may be.