To be shocked at Sky News' coverage of the excavations in Praia Da Luiz?

[ziggiestardust]

I didn't see a lot of the initial coverage, as I was working abroad in 2007. But the Police are potentially excavating a little girl's body, regardless of the circumstances, and they've got live cameras at the scene, waiting. It's macabre, and it seems like regardless of the fact MM was a tiny little defenceless girl, she's fair game for the media.

I just think it's shitty. Do a quick piece on it, but is there any need for the close ups of the excavation site and a blow by blow account of what's happening?

Her poor family

Sky's hours on end coverage of the Pistorias trial too, stripping it across a whole day, 'live'. VAW as entertainment, no other reason to do this and not extracts.

Ethics is not the same as saying: 'I don't like it.' bogqueen

This is highly emotive as it is a young family and a small child and this is a parenting site but the coverage is no more or less disrespectful/invasive than any other case tbh it just feels that way if you identify with having small children and holidaying with them etc in the same way I found the OP coverage quite harrowing as I have a son of 20 and could identify with it.

it was the mccanns' lawyer who made the statement that they were bracing themselves for significant news, according to the bbc.

I have no idea whether there are live updates, and tbh anyone who has objection to them doesn't need to watch them - it's not hard to avoid - it really isn't.

But excavations along with a statement from the McCanns's own lawyer saying they were bracing themselves for significant news were never going to happen quietly given the previous media attention given to this case. Media attention which let's face it has been encouraged, demanded even, by the Mccanns.

well that depends doesn't it. Reporting every detail as if it is fact has always been sky's thing, but reality is that this kind of news only thrives if there is a market for it, so it could be argued that sky wouldn't be reporting every detail of this situation if there weren't people watching it.

So the question should be who is really to blame for the fact we live in a society which micro reports every detail as it happens, the news companies? or the watching public....

I read an article not long after MMC went missing which stated that newspaper sales increased by 30% if MM was on the front page, so who is to blame for the fact the newspapers put MM on the front page...?

Is it news or entertainment?

It's both kim147 . In this respect, f you don't like it, don't watch it.

I am a journalist. I am very critical and careful of of news coverage, which you can see if you care to search my posts.

I don't think you should do that, but I put it out there for your consideration.

Because of that, I utterly resent the views of some of the people on this thread.

Well we know all that kim147

I know kim147 and I know the case you're talking about.

But in this case, people are being very bad indeed.

The traducing of poor Lucy Meadows is disgusting. But the legitimate reporting of a news story is not.

I think the coverage is fine Anything like this is voyeuristic it depends how sensitive you are to the feelings etc of people you don't know as to how it affects you. The family have always wanted it high profile the child's mother even wrote a fairly detailed book with some very intense personal comment and I am sure with all their connections they could have limited this coverage in some way? It is probably best not to watch it if it upsets you at least until the information is factual rather than speculation

Kim you do realise that the quote you included about the tents does not provide information but speculation? 'It is thought . . .'
I understand why you find speculation about storage tents less distasteful but you are falling into the very trap that you're criticising. The only fact known is that there are tents.

Yes but Kim was including those quote directly to comment on the difference between speculation and actual.news. Not to participate in speculation or even news analysis per.Dr.

I told you Kim147 but perhaps you missed it: if I was working for Sky or anyone else, I would report this story just as everyone else is doing.

In other words, I would get to the site every day, file my reports, and hang about with all the other reporters, chatting to them, local people, and the Met Police press officer who will be facilitating this news event - because it is a news event, which is completely stage-managed.

How do you imagine news like this is reported? Do you think you sit around in an office waiting for the police to call you and everyone else if they find something? That would be civilised, but unfortunately that's not happens. What happens is that you hang about, watching and waiting and talking to people, and if something happens you report on it. When it doesn't, you don't. The police have got something better to to do than second-guess what might make a story and make umpteen phone calls to reporters, don't you think?

Yes, I do remember the murder of Joanna Yeates and the treatment of her landlord Christopher Jefferies. He won libel damages against The Sun, the Mirror, The Daily Mail and the Express group, but not against Sky News.

I'm not sticking up for Sky News, I don't work for them, it's just that the point that you and others are missing is that those newspapers fucked up - either wilfully or not - and Sky News and other outlets did not.

It is completely legitimate to do background interviews when investigating a story. It is not legitimate to use that material to libel someone, and that's what they did.

I completely support his right to take them to the cleaners. Why wouldn't I? I do my job properly and I care about the way news is reported.

You don't understand how news is gathered, and that's understandable, because it's not your job. But you talk about information and there being 'none to give'. How do you think information gets out there? Do you think reporters sit around in offices waiting for the police to call us and tell us stuff? Again, do you not think the police have more important things to do than our jobs for us?

And do you want to live in a world where journalists sit around being spoon-fed the information the police and other authorities want you to know, or do you think they should find out things whether that's convenient to some people or not?

That is one of the major points of the Leveson inquiry and the phone hacking trial: the Met Police and News International have had far too cosy a relationship and that way corruption lies. By wanting reporters to act with decorum, you and others are inadvertently advocating that.

I remember a friend (maybe colleague) of Christopher Jeffries being interviewed after his arrest on sky saying there was no way he'd done it.

CJ was crucified by the media for looking odd.

Limited - the police won't be briefing. They've made that very clear. It is certainly the case that they generally do - and definitely the case that the police and journalists have a much closer relationship than the public generally realise (I'm not talking about tipoffs here - more police saying things to journalists like "we're not saying the handle of the missing knife was red to narrow down calls from the public, can you please make sure that's not in any coverage")

But this case is different. The situation in Portugal is completely different. From where I've been standing it seems to be that officially the Portuguese police don't brief the journalists and suspects aren't allowed to speak to them either, but in practice what this has meant for the McCanns - in the early days at least - is they were unable to defend themselves and were comprehensively smeared by the police to the Portuguese press - smears which were repeated without appraisal or application of critical faculties by the British press who were out in Portugal at the time, desperate for a headline. Reading of the Leveson report paints the unedifing picture of the Great British Press Corps sitting in a bar reading the Portuguese papers and working out what they'd be using for their own copy the next day. A failure which has lead to a lot of the misinformation - or to use the technical term - shite - which regularly gets spewed out on these sorts of threads.