Media reactions to tragedies and

[NormanH]

I deplore the intrusive behaviour of journalists in covering major tragedies such as the recent bomb in Manchester

http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/manchester-bombing-media-reaction/

is one aspect of this.

Another is the increasing 'poisonilastion' ( a made-up word from personaliastion and poison ) of politics, where individuals' personalities are targetted in a poisonous way rather than the  policies or issues at stake. An obvious current example of that  is May versus Corbyn, but 'playing the ball not the man' seems to have been forgotten.

[alittlebitfrench]

We finally agree on something Norman.

The media are milking atrocities. Why can't it simply be a headline story rather than dragging it out all day.

Sky, BBC, Daily mail should be ashamed of themselves. They just want to sell news and ads on their websites.

Giving ISIS all this publicity is exactly what they want. One could argue that the media are slowly becoming complicit in their acts.

[suein56]

NormanH wrote :

I deplore the intrusive behaviour of journalists in covering major tragedies such as the recent bomb in Manchester

Me too.

albf wrote :

Giving ISIS all this publicity is exactly what they want.

One could argue that the media are slowly becoming complicit in their acts.

But reporting in measured tones doesn't hack it today it seems.

And isn't it perhaps partially true that some of the clamouring public want their anger/exasperation expressed for them ... and in glorious technicolour ... across the tabloids ?

Sue

[Hoddy]

I deplore the intrusive behaviour of journalists full stop. After the recent cyber attacks when a young man had by chance put a stop to some of them he asked for anonymity. Within 24 hours his photograph, his name and address and his employer's name were published.

It's not just the press though is it ? At risk of showing my age, people nowadays are quite comfortable to ask very personal questions about your work, your income and other things which would have been considered very rude when I was young.

[mint]

What makes me feel sickened is when they stick a mike in front of someone who is distressed, shaking, crying and asking for comments.  And, of course, the victims are too much in shock and despair to deal with this sort of persistence and instinctively say things which they might not have done were they calmer.  This is surely the worst sort of despicable trap to set anyone.

No decency whatsoever, the BBC being as bad as any other media outlet.

It's 24 hour rolling news coverage that has done it for respect, decency and discretion.........they need to fill every second of every minute of the 24 hours

[woolybanana]

Yes, Nimt, you final paragraph absolutely right.

[Loiseau]

Agree with all the foregoing.

Mawkish headlines splashed all over the tabloids on newsstands I have seen today.

It's a terrible tragedy, even for families whose children were not involved in it - and who now are made, by press hysteria, to feel they should not let their children out of their sight.

[Alan Zoff]

The greater the tragedy, the more it becomes a media-fest with slavering reporters who can't get enough of it. How many times have we heard a reporter ask some traumatised parent if they are hoping that their lost child will be found and has come to no harm? What do they expect the answer to be?

And yes, this all plays into ISIS hands. They are not going to be shamed by public outcries or frightened off by defiant politicians. Those who watched the Tom Holland programme on Channel 4 will know that this is precisely the reaction ISIS wants.

The media would do everyone a favour by giving a muted, sober response (Corbyn has been best of the politicians on this) but there is no chance of this happening in this sensation-seeking world fuelled by Murdoch and co.

[andyh4]

While I cannot disagree with any of the above postings please do not believe that this is a new phenomenon. Yes internet speeds up the delivery of stories, yes digital photography allows pictures to be sent around the world in an instant, and yes 24 hour news channels create a need for more and more news and the new "angle", but new the phenomenon is not.

Formerly I was an active caver and potholer. Back in the 70s we would blackly joke that 4 people killed in a road accident would probably make the inside pages of the local rag: a mountaineer killed in the Himalaya might make a few column inches in the nationals, but to make front page news, you needed to be a caver trapped by flood water underground - safe, but trapped until the water levels fell. That was the story!

Over the years I and my friends have been involved in a number of rescues of folk trapped or injured underground. Nothing brave or heroic, we were there just to be the pack animals. The media treatment of such incidents has at best been laughable at worst near dangerous. In the worst case the name and sex of the victim was wrong, the location was misreported - putting the incident in another county - and as for the police, ambulance men and firemen who put their lives at risk - well if they had been allowed underground perhaps they would have done.

It was at this point that I refused to pay for a UK paper any more. If they could not report fact, how could I trust them with news where opinion would be important in interpreting what was going on.

For some insights into the impacts you might care to read a report of the Mossdale tragedy. The article is now 9 years old as we come up to the 50th anniversary of the incident, but within it are some ideas of the media and media treatment even back then. There are a few one or two liners through the article which hint strongly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/what-lies-beneath-mossdale-caving-disaster-794268.html

[Alan Zoff]

This is trivial in the scheme of things but illustrates Andy's point.

Some years ago, I organised an "Antiques Road Show" as a fund raiser for our local school. Parents brought in various nick-nacks and a local valuer put her best estimates on them, in front of our paying audience which included a (non-paying) reporter from the local rag.

Next day, a colourful article appeared in which all the values had been greatly inflated, most by adding a "0" to the valuer's figure but in one case 100 times bigger. As the owners had been named in the article, I then received complaints from householders who were worried that they were at risk of break-ins to steal their "valuables".

When I contacted the paper, they shrugged it off saying that they had used a little "editorial licence" to make the article more interesting. In other words, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

[Chancer]

Thank you for posting that link Andy.

 

I am so glad that I read the moving story, I knew nothing at all of it, to say I enjoyed it would be wrong for something so terrible in living memory but it was in the same genre as books about Scott, Shackleton, Hillary etc, compelling reading.

[lindal1000]

Many years ago a colleague of mine was in her flat in Lewisham when there was an incident outside her window that resulted in a policeman being stabbed. She then saw the police catch the guy who did it and set about him with their boots and six foot planks. She was interviewed by the police (who strangely forgot to write down details of what she saw..and she was never called to give evidence) and then left alone. A few hours later she started to get calls, and visits from the SCUM, Daily depressed etc. all offering her money to give them an interview. She's a shrewd Northern Irish woman well used to the ways of the press and she told them where to go in no uncertain terms but it gives you an idea of what they're like.