Preparing Journalism Students for the Blameless Bugle and the Guilty Gazette

Abstract

First paragraph: When a 13-year-old girl from my children’s school drowned with her father in a boating accident a few years ago, the story prompted me, as a journalist and lecturer in journalism, to reflect again on the way journalists act. I remembered why my training on a regional daily paper convinced me I was not cut out for a career in hard news. I now teach students about how to approach death knocks and rehearse for them the arguments of news editors about why these have to be done, but I was never convinced by the latter and consequently never comfortable about doing the former. Intruding into a family’s grief and shock is, it seems to me still, a low-rent way to make a living. I know editors say the family often finds it therapeutic to talk, or may be keen to see the loved one honoured, but I doubt whether many families would choose to be pursued by a pack of baying hacks within hours of a tragic death. The justifications for death knocks are spurious, as any journalist knows deep down. And, as I’ve suggested elsewhere, (McKay 2006: 217-218) journalists are definitely not the most appropriate or helpful people to speak to in a time of great personal trouble.