Murder, They Cheered

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“In my experience of working with various editors over the years, it doesn’t matter if the death has just taken place. Even in the case of a baby’s death, the pressure is on reporters from radio and TV stations to talk to the family and to get the all-important quotes and pictures.

Sometimes local councillors are willing accomplices in this practice, colluding in identifying the victim’s address and even giving background information.
The stories are legion. I have twice been asked to approach a family in hospital while their child was recovering in intensive care. I didn’t try very hard.
I have heard, on multiple occasions, news editors cheering at the news of a tragedy involving an attractive woman.

Blimey.

Anyone/Really?

Death knocks: the dark side of journalism (Anonymous, Irish Times)

File photo: Photocall Ireland

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16 thoughts on “Murder, They Cheered

      1. What Goes Up...

        To be fair – it’s relative.

        Camilla Parker Bowles could go horse riding tomorrow and disappear over a cliff – and people would be more worried about the horse.

  1. BOC

    The only type “editor” that may have cheered at the death of an attractive women would be the kind that is over a glossy Sunday magazine pull out that would be afraid she would spill the beans on their affair. This attractive lady may have taken narcotics with a dog like creature. Without naming names.

    1. Lilly

      Haha. I didn’t know that, doesn’t surprise me though. You learn something new every day on Broadsheet.

  2. Fergus the magic postman

    Read that article yesterday, and then read this one http://irishcrimereporter.blogspot.ie/2008/12/hello.html and it seems to be the way in reporting, not just in Ireland. What is morally outrageous is deemed not only acceptable but necessary if there’s a good story to be had.
    These articles highlighting the plight and hardship of the reporters who are forced to do these horrible doorstepping jobs, will never tip the balance of sympathy in favour of the journalist over the victim, and rightly so.
    I had a job I didn’t like once, and I quit.

    1. realPolithicks

      The mantra that you often hear repeated here in the states regarding headline news is “if it bleeds, it leads”. i think that tells you all you need to know.

  3. phil

    None of that will change until the people who buy those newspapers change….

    What currently annoys me about the online edition of the Indo is their video content with ads, thats fine when its a celeb story but when its Gardai releasing CCTV footage of a suspect in order to enlist the publics help in identifying , the Indo tacks ads to the start of the video and the end to generate revenue from a tragedy , with content thats not their own ….

    1. Garthicus

      Yes, this drives me potty. I stopped looking at videos there a long time ago because of it.

  4. Kieran NYC

    Highlighted when a Sky ‘journalist’ started poking through a victim’s luggage (from the Malaysian crash in the Ukraine) live on air.

    Some really have no morals. I’m just waiting for someone to look into phone hacking here. Can’t have been just British papers.

  5. Wayne Carr

    Is this your one who got fired from the Sindo, and is now taking her dismissal claim through the courts?

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