Media using children's Instagram pouts when they die

[FlorenceMattell]

Tragically a little girl has died while on holiday with the school. The first picture the papers ( daily M)publish is one of her pouting - I'm guessing they have obtained from her Instagram or Facebook page.
AIBU to think this is not on?
I have a daughter the same age and she has some photos like this as do all her friends.
They don't represent them, I prefer the sporting picture, the family pictures etc.
I would be very upset as a parent if my daughter died and the picture to represent her was from her Instagram account.
I think the papers should agree to stop this practice with regards to children.

Thanks Tracy.

And that's a great example of where the wishes of "the family" don't necessarily come into line with good journalistic practice!

Celerie I understand the importance of a local news outlet's links with its community.

So what would you have done in May 1989 if you were a Liverpool local newspaper and got a press release from South Yorkshire Police about Hillsborough?

I'm guessing that if you'd have parroted it word-for-word you wouldn't have lasted until the second press release.

And your readers would have been right.

This has turned into a bit of a willy-waving fest, hasn't it?

Come on, the vast majority of 'journalism' ISN'T Watergate standard, it's celebrity PR, sensationalism and selling stuff.

Lol that cutting and pasting pictures from Facebook accounts is being defended in the high-flown terms of hills borough exposes.

You'll be invoking the long-dead days of the Sunday Times Insight team next.

The thing about the media I hate most in these type of situations, is when they publish photos taken at a funeral. It's so intrusive. I can understand it a bit if a celebrity has died, who has chosen to live their lives in the public eye, but when this poor girl who died on the school trip has her funeral, there will invariably be photos in the newspapers of her family carrying the coffin, her parents crying etc, and it feels so wrong.

Not wishing to attack you Diryan but why is it any different if someone has achieved fame through celebrity or the manner of their dying?

Gawping is wrong.

A news event is a news event.

Come on, the vast majority of 'journalism' ISN'T Watergate standard, it's celebrity PR, sensationalism and selling stuff.

Yes it is. I don't think I've said anything else.

I've not defended it but I have pointed out that shuddering away from such tawdry exposures is dangerous.

Come on, the vast majority of 'journalism' ISN'T Watergate standard, it's celebrity PR, sensationalism and selling stuff.

Sorry, my mistake, no it it isn't - there's no correct button on MN.

But there is no excuse for sloppy journalism either.

That goes for whether you report on Hillsborough or on sleb stuff.

For me, and others on here, the standards are the same.

None of us regurgitate press releases.

Poor old Celerie had the temerity to suggest raiding the Facebook pictures of dead children was not the best use of the freedom of the press.

Since then this thread has turned into a platform for increasingly pompous wanking-off by some seriously self-loving posters.

The intention might well be to convince us just how incredibly, vitally important to the functioning of a free and just society their work is.

However, given that the increasingly sanctimonious and pious sermons exist in a world alongside a media that is predominantly about false breasts and poor-bashing, the result is profoundly ironic.

And the thing is, many of the journalists involved in campaigning/investigative work would die rather than have their work invoked as justification for the sort of hack work this thread is about.

One of my rellies was on the ST Insight team. He's terribly proper. I'm thinking I might gently wind him up with a lunch conversation about the rights of tabloids to pinch FB pictures of dead and injured children.

Again, I really do respect media workers.

I just get the sense that this thread has turned into a group of people having a go at anyone who is at all critical in a way that's a bit over-forceful.

Can I just remind posters that the thread isn't some sort of zero sum situation where we are either FOR a self-muzzled press or FOR a complete lack of criticism of shitty practices that have come to characterise our contemporary press.

Conflating the two is a way of shutting down a conversation we really should be having.

I cannot believe how crap the press is these days. So much of it really is PR drivel. It makes me sad. BUT it does seem to be what people want.

thecatfromjapan Poor old Celerie talked about regurgitating press releases without question and then justified it by talking about 'legal issues'.

She or he is wrong.

I objected as did others. But she could return and as a journalist I would enjoy nothing less than a robust debate.

Have a nice lunch with your relation from the Sunday Times Insight team.

I hope he'd be horrified at reproducing press releases as standard and taking PR officers' pronouncements as gospel - especially seeing as the Sunday Times exposed the Thalidomide scandal.

I also imagine he'd disapprove of plucking pix from Facebook and the like unless he felt that was fair game for exposing a serious story.

It's a difficult call.

Or is that pompous wanking off by seriously self-loving posters?

Why don't you ask him and also ask him what he really did for Insight?

Sheesh! So much anger!

I'm not a bit angry

I'm just asking because as he worked on Sunday Times Insight that would have been at least 30 years ago and as a serious journalist, I am interested.

What Limited said. And no, I'm not angry either.

Not wishing to attack you Diryan but why is it any different if someone has achieved fame through celebrity or the manner of their dying?

No, you're right, it is intrusive whatever the circumstances. I just meant that although I don't approve of it, I can understand the public interest factor in a funeral if a celebrity has died. Also if you've courted publicity through your life you can foresee the press will turn up to your funeral, and that's a regrettable flip-side to leading a celebrity lifestyle, but if you lead a normal life but happen to die in tragic circumstances, then it feels even more intrusive as the dead person can't agree to it.

I don't understand why Celerie is getting such a bashing.

I have worked both as a police press officer and a reporter. A police press officer's job is very different to that of a reporter's. Unlike most other press officers, a police press officer's job first and foremost is to get the facts out there that might assist the investigation team in securing information. The reporter's job is to add the flesh to the bones of the story in a way that is respectful of the judicial process. I think this is what Celeriac said and she is right. And she is right about prejudicial nuances too. I had a friend who was cross examined by a lawyer in court on the basis of the press release she put out.

Celerie is getting a bashing because she misunderstands what being a reporter is.

So do you LittleLionMansMummy

And your understanding of being a police press officer is as clearly misinformed as I apparently about reporters... having been in the position where I have been both

As a press officer would you expect someone to use your press release without question LittleLionMansMummy?

And when you were a reporter would you do the same?

sidesteps big debate as doesn't understand half of it

Op I agree, I was surprised when I saw the photo. I also found it distasteful that the only information they seemed to have came from the Facebook accounts of the poor girl's sister. Just the idea of some journalist scouring through the fb of grieving teenagers for a soundbite bugs me...

Oops, superfluous bolding there...