Warning: Reporting news might cause harm
What is the toughest part of working in the news business?
Without a doubt, it’s dealing with family and friends of the victims of tragedy.
They are hurting and often seek solace in privacy.
We have a job to do that involves making information public.
The unavoidable clash is addressed in the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.
“Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort,” the code says. “Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.”
But it is a recipe for conflict.
FAMED REPORTER Bob Woodward of Watergate fame was once asked where “compassion” ranked in the top 10 things a news reporter considered when writing a story.
Woodward was blunt: It doesn’t always make the top 10, he said, but it is always considered.
Journalists understand that what they do sometimes hurts people.
The SPJ Code of Ethics has a section called “Minimize Harm” that urges journalists to “Show compassion ...” and “Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.”
But there is no formula for avoiding hurt.
Except to stop printing the news.
TWICE RECENTLY this editor received a call from a family member of someone involved in tragedy.
Both had the same request: Don’t publish another article about the matter unless the family approves it.
One call came from the daughter of a man who had been seriously injured in an auto accident.
The other was from a relative of a man whose death was being investigated by police.
We cannot grant such a request and still do our job, which is to let people know what is going on in their communities.
Especially when sirens and red-blue flashing lights are involved.
WHEN POLICE are called, it’s a story.
In the case of the man’s death that was mentioned above, few details were known when police were called to the scene.
The death was later ruled a suicide, something we don’t report except in special circumstances. Those would involve someone who is prominent, someone who takes his life in a prominent manner, and those cases when the family agrees to discuss the death so that others may learn something helpful.
That last exception applied to a recent article we published about a teenager’s suicide. Because that is a topic of great local interest and concern, the family consented to an interview as part of their – and their community’s – search for answers.
Had the family not wanted to talk, that story would not have been reported.
BUT THAT’S NOT the approach we take when police are involved in a traffic accident or homicide.
When people see and hear emergency vehicles at the scene of a crash or the site where a body is discovered, they have a natural curiosity to want to know what’s going on.
They also have a need to know how such things are handled by their public servants on the police force and fire department.
We also believe that an informed and engaged public is essential to helping police officers and firefighters do their jobs.
The tough part is knowing when legitimate public interest intrudes unnecessarily into a family’s privacy concerns.
It never seems to be the same from story to story.
“DO YOU HAVE anyone there who proofreads the paper before it is delivered?” said one scorching e-mail to the editor.
The case involved a young woman who had died in a car accident during a time that her adoption was being completed.
That morning as we were putting the paper together, police gave us one last name and the funeral home gave us another. We printed one name with the accident story, another with the obituary.
“Which is her last name?” the e-mail said. “Don’t you think the family will find this upsetting if they see it?”
Good questions, but ones we couldn’t get answered as our deadline approached.
Some problems cannot be resolved in the time allowed.
A SERIOUS INJURY to a young boy was news for several days as police investigated after the child was hospitalized.
We wrote stories about the investigation as details dribbled out, and when the child died.
“Do you people have no shame?” one e-mail said. “How can you exploit the death of an infant to sell papers? His obituary would have been enough at this time. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child.
“Then you have your local paper, which uses his death to sell newspapers ... just unbelievable. Couldn’t you have waited at least until after the funeral to make your big story? How do you sleep at night?”
We hear that a lot, the assertion that we make decisions about content just to boost newspaper sales.
The easy answer is that, yes, news does sell newspapers.
The truth is that we sell more than 85 percent of our newspapers to subscribers, who are going to receive the newspaper regardless of what news we publish on any given day.
In this case, our “big story” had a one-column headline over the story in the bottom right corner of the page.
If you want to sell newspapers, you use 3-inch-high letters across the top of the page.
WHEN THE FATHER called, he was distraught.
He cursed. He threatened. He accused.
Obviously, he was hurting. He had just lost his son, and he didn’t understand why the newspaper had to make that death a Page 1 story.
We explained that the police investigation made it much more than a routine story. And the death raised the stakes of possible criminal prosecution. That’s news.
And, as we always do, we offered sympathy: “I’m sorry for your loss.”
His response was a familiar one: “No you’re not.”
We can do little more than try to explain that it our job to report on criminal investigations. Our readers need and want to know about such things.
We never expect to fully satisfy anyone who is in that sad circumstance, but it’s an honest answer, and the best we can do.
Such calls always seem to end with the caller hanging up abruptly.
We hope we helped. We doubt that we did.
