Red Deer Advocate, December 24, 2012

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CANADA Monday, Dec. 24, 2012

‘Canadian Psycho’ Luka Rocco Magnotta chosen 2012’s Newsmaker of the Year BY ANDY BLATCHFORD THE CANADIAN PRESS

File photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS

Reporters attend a news conference in Montreal, June 5, 2012 where details about the arrest of Luka Rocco Magnotta were announced. ously wanted, isn’t it?� Benjamin, who spoke on condition that his family name not be published, told The Canadian Press. “That’s something he’s been wanting for a very long time and he got it. But just on the cost of a life and our friend.� Magnotta, a native of Scarborough, Ont., collected 22 per cent of Newsmaker of the Year votes to finish ahead of Vancouver-area teen Amanda Todd, whose video and suicide prompted an international discussion on bullying. Todd, who was sexually exploited online and subsequently bullied, received 18 per cent of the vote. Editors who chose Todd highlighted how her story could have a positive impact. “This tragic teenager whose life ended far too early has the potential to live on in our memories and improve the lives of future tortured teens,� said John Hadley, news director of Vancouver’s

CHQM-FM. Amid the NHL lockout, a combined entry of league president Gary Bettman and players’ union head Donald Fehr garnered 15 per cent of the votes to finish third. Liberal leadership front-runner and MP Justin Trudeau was the top vote-earning politician of 2012 with eight per cent support. He shared fourth spot with the collective Quebec student protester. Stephen Harper did not get any votes in what is believed to be the first time in the last two decades a sitting prime minister has been shut out in the survey. Magnotta was elected Newsmaker of the Year even though he didn’t receive a single vote from a newsroom in Quebec, where much of the story

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was anchored. Quebec had several big news stories in 2012, including the monthslong student protests, the explosive Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption, and the shooting only metres away from Pauline Marois on the night she returned the Parti Quebecois to power. “As news goes there were certainly far more significant issues that touched our nation,� Doyle MacKinnon, the Lethbridge Herald’s managing editor, said in explaining why he chose Magnotta. MacKinnon said it’s a sad commentary that men such as Magnotta and former colonel Russell Williams become household names while many Canadians don’t know who the recently canonized Kateri Tekakwitha is. “But the fact is,� he said, �the truly reviled invariably make bigger news than the moderately revered.“ Since the first Newsmaker of the Year poll back in 1946, politicians, diplomats and sports heroes have dominated the selection list — including figures such as John Diefenbaker, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Terry Fox. Very few nominees have earned the most votes out of infamy. Among the rare exceptions are 1965 selection Lucien Rivard, a convict who pulled off a spectacular prison escape, and colonel-turned-killer Williams in 2010. Even high-profile Canadian killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka — the latter with whom Magnotta reportedly had an obsession — did not reach the top of the list. Other notable criminals who weren’t voted Newsmaker of the Year include serial killer Robert Pickton, serial child killer Clifford Olson and Marc Lepine, the gunman who killed 14 women in Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique massacre.

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MONTREAL — Before 2012, Luka Rocco Magnotta was a littleknown, 4-a.m regular at a Montreal diner, where he munched on poutine and guzzled water to rehydrate after performing at a nearby strip joint. He ends the year as a notorious international figure — an accused killer charged with stomachturning crimes that set off a global manhunt and horrified people around the world. Driven by his headline-grabbing spring, Magnotta has been voted Canada’s 2012 Newsmaker of the Year in the annual poll of the country’s newsrooms by The Canadian Press. The choice, made by editors and news directors, is rooted in the eyeopening reach of a story that erupted last May after the death and dismemberment of university student Jun Lin. Magnotta now sits in a Montreal detention centre, where he awaits trial on several criminal counts, including firstdegree murder in Lin’s killing. The 30-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The Montreal slaying touched regions across Canada after Lin’s hands and feet were mailed separately to four locations in British Columbia and Ottawa. The bizarre circumstances around Lin’s death also hit the public radar on two other continents. The news landed in Lin’s native country of China, where his parents still live. He had left his homeland to study computer engineering in Canada. The story also spread to Europe. The high-profile search by authorities for Magnotta ended with his June arrest in a Berlin Internet cafe, where he was reportedly reading online articles about himself. The public’s interest was drawn in by the rare horror of the accusations against Magnotta, a small-time porn actor, stripper and escort who was dubbed “Canadian Psycho� by some foreign media. “The depravity of the charges that Luka Magnotta faces proves truth truly is stranger than fiction,� said Victor Krasowski, CJUK/CKTG news director in Thunder Bay, Ont., who voted for Magnotta. James O’Connor, managing editor of the Brandon Sun, said the allegations against Magnotta “ripped the lid off the unimaginably depraved underworld� of sadistic sex, mutilation and death. The 33-year-old Lin’s torso was found in a suitcase outside Magnotta’s apartment building, his hands and feet were mailed to political offices in Ottawa and schools in B.C., and his head was discovered in a Montreal park. There was also the infamous video posted online that police believe showed the dismemberment. In the gruesome footage, a person is seen repeatedly stabbing a naked young man with an ice pick. The killer later dismembers the corpse and appears to commit sexual and cannibalistic acts on it. Magnotta had a prolific online presence, with details about his life embellished and fabricated on Internet message boards and social media. One of Lin’s close friends believes Magnotta would take satisfaction from his selection as Newsmaker of the Year. “That’s what he obvi-

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