Today I am ashamed to be a journalist :o(

News coverage of the two recent disasters has left a very bad taste in my mouth, I feel almost embarrassed to be a journalist. I mean, I know it's a dream come true for the media to have two disasters occur back to back, talk about guaranteed headlines, but IMO our major news organisations have shown some very debatable ethics in their decisions what to screen/print.
Today I popped into Countdown to get some veges and while I was standing in the queue to check out I had a brief look at the headlines on the Sunday newspapers. One of them (Sunday News) had a 2/3 page pic of the mother of one of the children killed in the canyoning tragedy crying her eyes out. What an appalling intrusion into her grief! Last week the Herald ran an equally as shocking picture of Derek Lovell's widow AT HIS FUNERAL!! And for what, to sell a newspaper? It didn't make me want to buy it, it just made me feel sick. Yesterday's Weekend Herald was only marginally better, and I haven't been brave enough to get the Sunday Herald out of the letterbox yet, too scared what I might find
And don't even get me started on the television news. I can really only comment on TV3 as we don't watch TV1, but they have made some bad, bad calls lately IMO. During coverage of the funeral for the firefighter who died in the coolstore fire they showed a brief picture of one of the injured firefighters at the service, despite the fact that media presence there was conditional on them NOT showing images of the injured firefighters who attended.
And during this week, their exploitation of the victims of the canyoning disaster has been equally as dodgy. I cannot believe they took TV cameras into a school full of shocked and grieving teenagers less than 24 hours after the news broke and not only filmed, but INTERVIEWED these very vulnerable children. Tasteless and inappropriate.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that the media has a very important role to play in an open and democratic society, and that there is a high level of public interest in tragedies such as this, for the most part so that members of the public can grieve with, and support, those who have been directly affected.
But when I was training to be a journalist, one of the papers I took was all about media ethics, and whilst some people might argue that there is no such thing (and lets face it, we are a dodgy lot ), there is actually a code of ethics which we are required to adhere to. And one of the most important ones on that list IMO is to respect the rights of private citizens to grieve in private. This ALWAYS outweighs the right of the public to be informed. I just cannot see how recent coverage of these two tragedies has preserved and respected these rights? But hey, I'm sure it sold papers, and attracted viewers..
I am so very ashamed, and embarrassed. And I'm sorry for the families caught up in these tragedies who have been exploited during the worst times in their lives, all for a headline and the almighty dollar.

There will be more, that was just the first funeral, they are staggering them over the next week so that those that want to can attend.
I thought it was pretty awful too. poor buggers

fleury wrote: There will be more, that was just the first funeral, they are staggering them over the next week so that those that want to can attend.

Yep, like I said, a media dream

Red - please tell me that wasn't the Sunday Herald? Now I *really* don't want to go out and bring it in...

Having just had the media intrude on our family grieving after a tragedy, it makes me feel especially sick seeing this stuff. Enough to not watch the news this week anyway. They were disgusting - waiting outside the hospital, then parking up outside the family home, then hiding in the bushes with big cameras outside the funeral.

What is the pic of in the paper?? I had a look online and it was a distant photo of the casket.

Where does it come from? I know they're looking for new angles etc but isn't about meeting demand- what the 'consumer' wants, doubt you'll find many news readers who want to see an open coffin of a child. Its like they're being lazy- instead of writing good articles they're just showing sensational pictures and using that to sell papers rather than good old fashioned talent and research.

Boycott I say!

Peanut wrote: Also think its off that just because it is a christian school, the media feels it has a right to question the parents on their belief in god after the accident. If it had been a state school would they question it?

They have certainly focused on it but I wonder it's because such a positive side of Christianity portrayed? The parents love and unwavering faith in God has been displayed clearly. The parents are greiving but their happiness in knowing where thier son is was also evident in the coverage I saw...it's no doubt something that would be focused on by the media and people not getting thier heads around how the parents/school/church can NOT blame God and still display such amazing faith in this time.

fattartsrock wrote: Annnd I am sick of them showing open caskets and dead bodies on the news. What a huge intrusion on the dead persons dignity, its not like they can say oh hey, no not on the tele thanks. I felt sick last night sitting down with my children and takeaways in the lounge last night, watching the news and seeing a shot of a body in an open coffin.

I agree on this, I hate seeing dead bodies on the news. I remember being really young and seeing one on the internet and feeling really weird for days so hate that my kids can see it so easily. I understand why people have open coffins but we don't need to see it on the news.

Although I do think it hasn't been as bad as some other things this week. I think the principal handled it so well and they put the people forward to speak who were ok to talk so the media didn't really go after the survivors. I like how they haven't really made much of a deal on whos fault it is. I did not like how they showed a dead body (of that man who died overseas in a different canyoning thing) in a harness under the helicopter, totally unecessary.

I've been really inspired by thier display of faith too, sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world to accept God's will or to accept when He hasn't stepped in, you wouldn't blame them if they were angry at God. But instead thier faith blows me away. Makes me realise that in some ways mine has been lacking over the last few weeks and I need to be closer with God again.

And by their faith making others of us question where we are at, then that is something so incredibly positive.