News reporting

[Highlander]

Is it really necessary for news agencies to show pictures of the family of Bristol landscape architect Joanna Yeates visiting the scene where her body was found.

What purpose did it/will it serve.

And it is not only TV. The number of pictures we have had in our local papers of horrific fatal car crashes is incredible.

Perhaps that is different in that the pictures may shock people into driving more carefully.

[loz]

I thought that too H yet then got thinking, if she was murdered seeing the photos and footage may (longshot) just may prick the conscience of the person(s) who did this and enough to break their silence; never know someone may know who did this, photos/news footage could assist in the solving the case (Loz ever the optimist).

Another argument for DNA and CTV (big brother) databases, do nothing wrong you have no worries.

Fatal car crashes, tough one, if photos save one life then yes.

One thing confuses me, we have been watching the cop programs on Tv, when they (the police) catch some of these scum it usually turns out that the driver has been banned, the narrator goes on later to say that the driver was taken to court and the bann extended?  why? they were driving when banned anyhow.

[Highlander]

I agree Loz that seeing the photos and footage may help the investigation.

But when the family visit the scene for goodness sake switch every camera off and let it be totally private.

If it needs that kind of footage for pepole to come forward, then we are doomed:(.

[Toky]

Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would want to visit the scene where the body was found. I'd be soo traumatised at losing my daughter, I'd be unable to face anyone, let alone take a visit to the scene. I'd avoid that place for the rst of my life.

[Scunner]

I think sometimes there is a trade off made on behalf of the relatives - perhaps in this case a halfway house between being kept away by the police completely and sticking their lenses right in the faces of the poor grieving parents.

[Highlander]

One of the reasons I asked the why the media showed the parents visiting the site, is that I well remember the media agreeing to a request from Michael Forsyth to withdraw from Dunblane to let people grieve in total privacy.

[Scunner]

I remember reporters from all the nationals outside our house when I was still living with the parents. Not for anything we'd been up to, our neighbour opposite was being rushed to hospital, making him (at the time) only the second person in the country to be receiving a heart transplant. They were all knocking on our door asking questions. Did we know him...yes, he lives opposite, we know him. There are rumours that he had an affair around ten years ago, do you know anything about that...

[Highlander]

It's straying off topic, but it really gets up my nose when the press tell me that they print lurid stories about this and that because it's what the public want.

Well let me tell you NOT ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tiddly winks]

I often think it's disgraceful how the press deal with such incidents insensitively.
My school had a boy in my 6th Form recently who was attacked on the friday of children in need just outside school really violently and was rushed to hospital. Me and a friend were approached after school by a 2 men, one with a camera and were asked if we attended the 6th form and what we knew of what had happened. What if we had known him closely and were then really distressed by being asked such questions?

Sadly the boy died on the sunday, we held a vigil for him on the sunday night in the village and we were filmed from a distance but we saw the cameras and press vans. On the monday my whole 6th form held another vigil at the memorial site, many people crying including me, a very sad and private moment.
Later that night I was watching the local news on the tv and the boy was an article. Shots of our 6th form vigil were being shown, including one of me walking across the road crying and holding a friend. They couldn't show close ups but I still managed to recognise myself! No one had seen any cameras at the time but shots implied they were in fact standing in some woodland nearby - a complete invasion of privacy at a very raw and emotional time and they were hiding and filming it!

CCTV footage within reason I think can be useful, especially with shows like Crimewatch butI fully agree that cameras should be switched off in situations like showing grieving family and friends.

[scouser2]

Watching the news, and seeing that the crossbow killer was sentenced, i was incensed that his victims were always referred to as prostitutes. They were 3 women and yes that was their job, but if they were all accountants would they have been continuously referred to as accountants? i don't think so.Rant over.