Doorstepping the bereaved
Posted on | July 7, 2009 | 35 Comments
Wayne Doherty was shot dead in West Dublin on Saturday night. He was a family man, not related to crime as far as we know, and was perhaps mistaken for somebody else.
He had a wife and two little kids. It’s an awful, senseless thing that has plunged that family into the depths of despair.
So I wonder why is it that newspapers feel it’s ok to knock on the door and to ask them about their loved that has just been killed. I know it’s fairly standard practice and I’m not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but I’m curious as to how it became acceptable.
If such a crime was perpetrated on my loved ones and a reporter came looking for information or background on their character they would be leaving my property with a very, very sore arse having received my boot in it as many times as I could possibly manage.
Are there enough friends, colleagues or relatives outside the immediate family to get that kind of detail from? Why is their little respect for their feelings or their privacy (and that’s not even getting into the issue of funerals and photo ops which is another tasteless sideline).
I just find it weird that this kind of practice is allowed and that there aren’t more complaints from families when the journalists turn up at their houses.
If the family want to speak the press surely it’d be easy to arrange but unless they give express permission shouldn’t they be left alone to grieve?
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35 Responses to “Doorstepping the bereaved”
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July 7th, 2009 @ 9:46 am
Fecking right Twenty, As my house was still burning to the ground a news team arrived wanted to ask my Mom questions as to how it may have started and how she felt about the loss!!! WTF
July 7th, 2009 @ 9:55 am
Bad news sells.And the more minutae the better.
Flyover same happened to my family home.
The amount of rubberneckers walking around while the house and our memories went up in flames still sickens.
No one got hurt.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:20 am
paparazzi are scum.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:21 am
ah come on now twenty, everyone wants to get in the papers..
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:22 am
I’m sure they’re mostly decent people when they go home at night and take off the tabloid hat, but there’s something about those places that can instill the cunt into the kindest of souls.
Doorstepping the bereaved – it doesn’t get much lower.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:24 am
I hate it. I was in a house where a child had died suddenly and they kept coming to the door. While he was lying there and the wake was going on.
I think the families don’t complain because they haven’t got the strength to deal with the scumbags.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Family friends should step in and keep the low life scum away from the house
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:36 am
My brother in law is a journalist who started his career with the Lurgan Times. He told me that door stepping funerals was like an apprenticeship, or baptism of fire if you like. Once you had spent a year doing that, you could brass neck anything. He said he always felt like a cunt though. There were loads of funerals in the Lurgan area in the late 70′s – early 80′s as you can probably imagine.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:46 am
Here, here peadar.
It’s always awkward to deal with a friend or a family member’s grief. Hanging around like a spare tool, looking for some impossible way to help them out or lessen the pain. Well, keeping the vultures off sounds like a perfect way to make ourselves truly useful. You may not be taking the pain away but you are preventing it from getting worse.
July 7th, 2009 @ 10:55 am
http://irishcrimereporter.blogspot.com/2008/12/hello.html
July 7th, 2009 @ 11:05 am
Interesting piece that and it must be poxy to have to do it.
It doesn’t really answer why we think this sort of thing is acceptable though, I suppose it’s just happened over time.
July 7th, 2009 @ 11:59 am
I was involved with a family a while back which suffered a tragedy involving the deaths of multiple family members. I have seen first hand what cunt reporters are like and believe me they are nothing like what is described in that article. Maybe Michael is the exception but from what I seen out of a barrage of reporters only one of them had any sense of common decency or respect. None of them would take no for an answer, climbing across walls when gates to the family home were locked, climbing up trees to take photos of people inside the house. Eventually husbands, uncles, brothers etc… had to stay on watch in the garden to stop them from getting to the front door. One little shite in particular wouldn’t take no for an answer. When he was forcefully fucked over the wall began cursing through the gates and threatening to call guards/solicitors etc… I have never witnessed anything like it and hope to never again. Utter cunts.
July 7th, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
That sounds scarily similar to what I witnessed,WYSIWYG.
They have a choice; they don’t have to knock at the door. I’d rather work shovelling shit than harass people who are struggling to get through every minute of the day as it is.
July 7th, 2009 @ 12:45 pm
I know an apprentice reporter with the Indo who absolutely hates being sent on doorsteps.
Which is not to say that there aren’t pondscum who, because of their general pondscumness or cut-throat ambition to get ahead, enjoy doing it.
I don’t know why it came to be regarded as acceptable, but I’m guessing it’s one part news editors who got their jobs by being doorstepping pondscum and so see nothing wrong with it, one part because people who buy papers don’t care (until it happens to them), and one part because it sells papers – in which case, it’s the paper-buying public who are the ultimate cunts here. There wouldn’t be a Sun or a Star or a Daily fucking Mail if people didn’t buy them.
July 7th, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
That sort of intrusion does nobody any favours, not least the many decent journalists who try to work to a high professional and ethical standard.
But you know, as others here have pointed out, there is a big market for sensationalism and immediate family reaction is tastier than friends or work colleagues.
You probably know this Twenty, but there is now a (new) code of practice for members of the press, and a press ombudsman to whom members of the public can complain about something they have read in a newspaper – or the behaviour of a journalist.
Going down this road might not provide the satisfaction of kicking said journalist in the testicles, but it may at least force the newspaper to print a grovelling apology.
(It’s also a damn sight cheaper – free actually – than suing newspapers left right & centre a la Monica Leech.)
July 7th, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
It’s true, the general public read the papers and scan through stories of tragedy etc… and this sells papers. However, I’m not so certain if it’s true to say that people who buy papers don’t care until it happens to them. It certainly was an eye opener for me and I think if most people knew the general cuntness of the journalists who put the stories there they might think twice about buying the papers.
Is it not possible to report a story without completely harassing a family grieving? And to stay off someones property if you are told to do so?
I have heard that said before “if people didnt buy the tabloids, there would be no tabloids” but that’s like a drug dealer blaming the junkie. If there were no junkies the drug dealer wouldn’t be selling drugs so it’s not really his fault.
July 7th, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
I just don’t watch those reports, nosey neighbours with their hands over their mouths in ‘shock’ yet having a good old gawk all the same. And the fact they any of them speak to the press is pretty low in my opinion.
The guy was trying to intervene in an imminent shooting which was in itself fucking stupid and now look, two kids and a wife left behind.
July 7th, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
On occaision the stories of patients I’ve looked after have made the papers.
It’s amazing how many journalists phone the Ward claiming to be relatives or close friends.
The dead giveaway is – we’re based in Glasgow and our ‘customers’ tend not to have cut-glass, Home Counties type accents!
July 7th, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
Mick O’Toole’s article explains what goes on and why very adequately.
To address 20′s question as to why it’s allowed – well, this practice is multiply circumscribed.
Firstly by the NUJ code of conduct, which requires journalists not to exploit the grief of others.
Secondly by the laws of the land which oversee issues of privacy.
And finally by the Press Council, to whom anyone aggrieved by a journalist or their work can complain.
The fact of the matter is that in many such cases, especially those of a violent death where someone may be culpable, grieving families welcome the opportunity to pay public tribute to their loved one and set the record straight as to their character.
It’s clearly a sucky job for hacks to do, of course. No one relishes knocking on the door of a bereaved family.
Apparently, the actor Hugh Jackman trained as a journalist, doing a degree in the subject, but only found out as he finished it that such a thing as ‘death knocks’ existed. At that point, before ever working in his chosen profession, he decided it wasn’t for him and became an actor instead.
July 7th, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
Apparently, the actor Hugh Jackman trained as a journalist, doing a degree in the subject, but only found out as he finished it that such a thing as ‘death knocks’ existed. At that point, before ever working in his chosen profession, he decided it wasn’t for him and became an actor instead.
And now he’s making millions with dodgy sideburns and metal fingers. Wise move you’d have to say.
July 7th, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
For sure. You couldn’t question that. For one, he probably wasn’t cut out to be a reporter if he’d managed to go four years without ever researching what the job he was being trained for entailed. And for two, he’s on a great earner now.
I only repeat the tale because Jackman himself in telling it made the point that it was the ne plus ultra he couldn’t face. Otherwise, he was keen to be a journalist.
I think people who are quick to utilise terms of abuse like ‘pondscum’ for journalists are probably equally slow to realise that journalists are people of the same emotions and sensitivities as everyone else, and that all too often grieving people WANT to talk to the press about what has occurred to their loved ones.
July 7th, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
We do doorsteps because there is a chance that some people will want to talk about the person they have just lost. Google Gordon Wilson and Enniskillen. He made a famous statement in, I think, 1987 after his daughter was murdered by the IRA to the effect that he forgave the killers. Now, if a journalist had not approached him, he would not have had the possibility to say what he wanted to say.
Of course there are plenty of scumbag journalists, but – in reality – there are only a few of us who deathknocks on a regular basis. Another poster mentioned an apprentice reporter in the Indo who hates doing them; I know the lads in the Indo who do the doorsteps and all are experienced.
I have just done three doorsteps over a killing in Mayo. Two people were happy to talk, one waved me away. But the two of them wanted to remember their friend. That’s what we do.
July 7th, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
That’s what we do.
Fair enough, but my real question is why you do it. I understand when you say families sometimes want to talk about it but I don’t think your motives (and I mean the industry, not you specifically) are based around what will help them or make them feel better.
That some of them do is a consequence of your actions, it’s not by design. It’s about what will sell papers.
July 7th, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
“I think people who are quick to utilise terms of abuse like ‘pondscum’ for journalists are probably equally slow to realise that journalists are people of the same emotions and sensitivities as everyone else, and that all too often grieving people WANT to talk to the press about what has occurred to their loved ones.”
I can only speak from my own experience JC but from what I seen out of numerous journalists only one had some sort of decency. The rest were most certainly cunts.
Would you climb a tree to take a photo through a kitchen window of a grieving family? After members of that family told you to get lost? Trust me it was made obvious the family did NOT want to talk to anyone.
Would you disregard that familys wishes and trespass on their property, climbing over their fences and walls to get to the front door?
Would you hurl abuse through a closed gate because you were kicked out of that property?
Would you threaten to call the guards on an immediate grieving family member?
Would you stand on walls and climb on trees at the funeral and take photos of the coffins?
and just a BTW none of what happened to this family was criminally related.
@Michael
You seem decent but to be honest i find it very hard to believe that most journalists do doorsteps because their main concern is for providing an outlet for people to speak.
Obviously there are exceptions but in my honest opinion that’s dressing it up, I would say most journalists are there for the story and could care less about grieving familys or anything else.
July 7th, 2009 @ 4:37 pm
@WYSIWYG
That’s fine, your opinion is just as valid as mine. But how many journalists do you know? And, more importantly, how many of them have you seen in action?
I know dozens of them in Dublin alone. I work with them every day. There are only a few, less than a handful, that I would consider to be a bollox. And two of them are broadsheet reporters at that.
July 7th, 2009 @ 5:06 pm
I know dozens of them in Dublin alone. I work with them every day. There are only a few, less than a handful, that I would consider to be a bollox. And two of them are broadsheet reporters at that.
Look, let’s not turn this into another ‘Colin Coyle is a cunt’ thread.
Anyway, as I said in the blog post I’m more curious about why this has just become an acceptable thing for people to do than the people who do it.
Folk will do pretty much anything in the name of work/money.
And Michael, from your own blog:
A few days later, I was doing another doorstep, this time in Omagh. It was the family of young Deborah Cartwright, a teenager killed in the bomb. I teamed up with a British reporter for it: there was no point in both of us doing it separately. Her father, an RUC officer, was standing in the garden, his hands in his pockets, staring at the grass. I took the lead. Again, I asked if he would speak to us. He said no. I apologised and walked away, expecting the reporter with me to also retreat. However, as I was walking away, I heard her angrily exclaim to him: ` What? Not even a word?’ I didn’t wait to hear his reply. I got out of there as quickly as I could.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting all journalists/reporters were cunts, but people on here have had bad experiences in difficult situations with certain members of your profession.
July 7th, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
I think there is a disconnect here between perception and reality.
There’s a public perception that doorknocks are an unacceptable intrusion into grief. I think this stems from the awkwardness that people feel around someone who has been bereaved.
Having volunteered years ago with a charity that dealt with those bereaved by suicide, I’m aware that there is a general stigma to death (and more so to violent death, be it suicide, murder or otherwise) that keeps people away from the door.
As a result, bereaved people can feel further isolated. For many people who have been bereaved, the need to talk about their loss can be profound, and exacerbated by the sudden vanishing of their extended support network within the community.
There’s also a perception that journalists are ethical black holes, devoid of human sympathy, amoral compasses spinning towards the most sensationalist of angles possible.
I’ve always thought it ironic that of all industries to be most publicly misunderstood and to suffer a poor public image, journalism ranks among the highest.
There frankly isn’t a large cohort of press out there, at least not in this country, operating from a total lack of ethics.
In fact, any journalist of my acquaintance – and I know a few – is hypersensitive to the effects of what they write on anyone affected, be they cabinet minister or grieving granny.
One problem is the public depiction of journalism in popular culture. In any TV soap or movie, they’re invariably shifty creatures, sell-their-granny-for-a-story shysters. Perhaps the public come to expect this of the media, and in lieu of actually seeing what the media actually do and how they really work, assume that what is depicted in drama is what actually occurs.
It isn’t in my experience. I’m not in a position to question Wysiwyg’s anecdote about his/her experience. But I would say that it is at worst highly atypical of Irish journalists’ behaviour and more likely quite exaggerated and implausible.
There’s no doubt that some things that the media do are considered lacking in taste by others. Their coverage of inane and banal topics and people, often in sensationalist tones, is indeed irksome and is done, as has been suggested, to sell papers.
But when there is a genuine case of public interest, I believe it is legitimate for the media, if not requested to respect the privacy of a family, to approach them as they would anyone else in the professional pursuit of the facts.
July 7th, 2009 @ 6:46 pm
I’m not sure some trite clichés about what a great person someone was or how well loved they were from their family is in the public interest. If a family member has some kind of insight into what happened, then maybe, otherwise it’s just exploitation of grief, in my opinion.
What are your thoughts on pictures of people, grief stricken, at funerals then plastered all over a newspaper?
July 7th, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
How would you know that family members only have trite cliches to offer until you speak to them?
Often, as Mick O’Toole has said already, they have plenty of things to say that can be of major importance.
You simply cannot predict what they might have to say. In circumstances such as this week’s killing in Mayo, when Mick speaks to the neighbours to build up a picture of the deceased for his readers, he is answering the perhaps prurient interest of the public to know who it is that has died. But that’s the very definition of public interest right there.
And often people will want to put the public record straight as regards the deceased, or will want to pay tribute to them, or defend their character, or explain their circumstances, or any number of things that go beyond trite cliche.
As for pictures of funerals, I’m not fond personally. Legally, it is of course perfectly fine for photographers to gather outside a church or in a cemetery. So there is no invasion of privacy involved.
But I’ve never thought such pictures add to my understanding of a death. As a reader of a paper, I already appreciate people will mourn without needing to see them do it.
That’s something that is decided by editors and conducted by photographers, though.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone objecting about a journalist sitting at the back of a funeral service quietly taping the eulogy.
July 7th, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
I read this blog pretty much every day JC but rarely post comments. Today however, this post touched a nerve so I commented, believe me I am not looking for approbation for my comments and my “anecdote” as you so tactfully put it, is not one bit exaggerated. Facts are facts. I experienced it and seen it with my own eyes.
You can stick up for your journalist buddies all you want. I don’t know any journalists personally so I can only speak from my experience with that family and of the blatant disregard for their privacy after they were told again and again to leave. Anyways, that’s all I’m going to say on it.
July 7th, 2009 @ 7:05 pm
How would you know that family members only have trite cliches to offer until you speak to them?
You’re speaking to them when they’re not really in a place to be speaking to strangers, if you see what I mean. What do you get beyond ‘X was a great person, we’re going to miss him’? Genuine question.
Neighbours, friends, colleagues etc can all give you a picture of a person. I’ve got no real problem with that. I just think that the immediate family’s privacy and grief should be respected.
As a reader of a paper, I already appreciate people will mourn without needing to see them do it.
I think most people do which is why photos (close-ups, crying mothers, children etc as opposed to generic crowd shots) are completely unneccessary.
July 7th, 2009 @ 7:12 pm
@Wysiwyg: If I wanted to be a bollix about this, I’d point out that people don’t call the police for no reason, and therefore your anecdote contains more than a few concerning lacunae, such as what did the house resident do that warranted the police being called on them? Did they assault a journalist, perhaps? In short, I’ll suffice to say that I find your story, as you present it, to be implausible because it is so clearly an incomplete account.
@20: The line isn’t so easily drawn. If one, for example, ringfenced the media by law or guideline practice from contacting grieving direct family members (as they are barred from contacting witnesses during a trial) then you’ve got an erratic boundary.
Some people are detached from their families, but live alongside others who know them better. Students, for example. Your guideline would stop a journalist from contacting a student’s parents, but permit them to contact his live-in pregnant girlfriend.
Some people are closer to their next-door neighbour than they are to their own mother.
And as Mick and I both said earlier, some families very badly want to talk about their loss and their loved one.
July 7th, 2009 @ 7:27 pm
Oh, and let me give you an example of where the media didn’t contact the family and greatly ballsed up thereby:
There was a case in the North where a tabloid paper covered the inquest into the suicide of a young girl.
In the course of the inquest, reference was made to the girl’s diaries, which included many disturbing references to her own sister.
The paper duly reported that the girl had taken her own life after a tempestuous relationship with her own sister.
However, what had not been mentioned in open coroner’s court was the small but pertinent fact that the girl was suffering from a mental illness and experiencing paranoid delusions about her family, especially her sister, that were not true.
You can imagine the devastation in that family when they read in the paper that their other daughter had driven their disturbed child to her death.
If the journalist had taken the time to approach them, they might quickly have discovered that their story was not only incredibly insensitive, but also factually inaccurate.
July 7th, 2009 @ 9:49 pm
@JC Skinner:
“Legally, it is of course perfectly fine for photographers to gather outside a church or in a cemetery. So there is no invasion of privacy involved.”
I could see your point to a some extent before I read that comment. Did you mean purely from a legal standpoint? Surely you can see that it is an invasion of the family & friends’ privacy? Even if someone did wish to speak about their loss, how on earth can it be “no invasion of privacy” to photograph people at the church/graveside?
July 8th, 2009 @ 8:43 am
I said legally because I meant legally. Cemeteries are public places. So are the streets outside churches. Photographers are freely allowed to gather and work there as in any other public space.
I don’t know that it’s necessarily an invasion of privacy either. I attended a funeral some years ago that had press photographers show up. I had to be told afterwards. I hadn’t even noticed them. Two came, took pictures, and were gone in about five minutes.
As I said earlier, I don’t feel such pictures are needed to illustrate the news. But editors will continue to seek them and print them, because they believe the public wish to see them.
Sales tell them this.
If you want the practice of funeral photos to be ended, then firstly stop buying any paper that takes pictures at funerals (that would be all of them) and secondly write to the editors and tell them.