Bereaved prefer “death knocks” over social media research

Bereaved families prefer journalists to carry out “death knocks” following sudden deaths, rather than reporters relying purely on social media.

This is according to a study carried out by Liverpool John Moores University’s Jackie Newton and Dr Sallyanne Duncan from the University of Strathclyde.

It has been published in a new book called The Phone Hacking Scandal: Journalism on Trial. The academics wrote a chapter exploring the ethics of reporting deaths in the age of social media and discovered that compared to seeking out quotes from online sources, “death knocks” were seen as the more ethical solution.

They interviewed 49 regional press reporters and 6 senior journalists or editors as well as 24 bereavement groups and families and found that in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that reporters are becoming more negative about the death knock than the families of the bereaved are:

“Many more families feel excluded from reports of their relatives’ deaths than feel 
intruded on. A number of families in this study had been prepared by the police for intense media interest in the death of their loved one. When it did not arrive, or when their loved one’s death was ignored or covered briefly without contact with the family, they felt ‘let down.’ One mother of a murder victim said this perceived lack of interest added a further layer of hurt to her bereavement. ‘It was as if my son’s death counted for nothing.’”

Some media outlets even get calls because families expected the death to be reported on:

“A former news editor who was interviewed for this study said: ‘I’ve taken calls on the newsdesk from people who have complained that their family tragedy didn’t receive coverage. It’s very hard. What do you say? You’re story wasn’t tragic enough?’”

There is a disparity in the regions, with the study finding that local journalists have “a heightened awareness of the effect of their reporting on those involved in their stories and the community.”

One long-serving news editor is quoted as saying: “families in Liverpool expect ‘the undertaker, the priest, and the Liverpool Echo.’”

But in this age of social media and with criticism of the professional, increasingly reporters are turning to social media in order to write the stories, sometimes without the bereaved’s consent.

“... there is an emotional cost to the journalist, particularly those who are inexperienced at dealing with grieving family members. Therefore, it could be assumed that given the ready supply of emotive quotes, personal details and pictures available from social networking sites it would seem that potentially journalists could get the necessary components of a death knock story without having to put themselves through a stressful visit to the family. It may require them to enter an ethical grey area that shares some characteristics with phone hacking but enables them to avoid direct contact with the bereaved.”

Needless to say, news editors and journalists felt that this was the last resort, or at least a “way in” to ask the family if these tributes could be used and followed up with an interview.

There are still question marks over using information and images from social media sites. Some will argue that they are in the public domain and in general journalists told the academics that “they did not think that it was intrusive to use comments from a deceased’s site if the profile is set to public.”

The study concluded that encounters between journalists and bereaved are “anticipated and positive” and this was particularly so in the regions and that more regulation, as suggested by Levenson was not the answer.

The research was published in Ethical Space in October last year, while the book is called The Phone Hacking Scandal, Journalism on Trial. It’s edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair.

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