One of the toughest decisions journalists face is how to cover victims of crime, disaster and other circumstances that thrust unwilling people into the spotlight at one of the most difficult times of their lives. Covering victims presents a variety of difficult choices for reporters and editors:

• Whether and how to even bother the victims for interviews or photographs.
• Whether and how to photograph victims or relatives who are showing their anxiety or anguish in public.
• Whether and when to use names.
• What details of crimes or injuries to report.

Several principles help in making these decisions. The toughest decisions come when these principles conflict:

• A journalist’s primary responsibility is to the readers and to the public interest. Even when other considerations argue for caution, journalists must find a way to publish information that illuminates a public debate or informs the public about matters of safety.
• Journalists should identify the people they write about unless strong valid considerations argue for protection of their privacy.
• Journalists should avoid unnecessary invasion of the privacy of innocent people, especially vulnerable people, people who are not used to dealing with the news media and people who have not voluntarily sought attention.

Minimizing intrusions

Many types of news stories place reporters and photographers in situations where they must decide whether or how to intrude on families who are grieving, celebrating or awaiting the outcome of stressful situations.

You may presume that the parent of a child who has died, for instance, wouldn’t want to talk to you. You feel like a vulture for even asking. As awkward as it is to ask, though, you need to respect that the decision on whether to do an interview is the parent’s, not yours. Never say no for someone else. Apologize for the intrusion and ask respectfully if you can tell their story. Some parents may embrace the chance to tell the world about this beloved child. Others may find talking too difficult at that moment. Ask who else might be able to talk. Sometimes a relative will be able to handle the interview. Tom Suk, retired police reporter for the Des Moines Register, gives this advice: “It’s always better to ask and have them tell you to go to hell than not ask and have them call the next day and say, ‘how could you write that about my son/daughter/friend without talking to me first?’”

Sometimes you can’t get an interview right away, but someone will be willing to talk later. If the story would still be newsworthy later, try again when the pain is not so raw.

Understand that when you conduct an interview with a victim of a traumatic incident, you cause the person, at some level, to relive the experience. Ask questions sensitively. Allow time for the character to process emotions as she responds. Ask if the person would like a friend, relative or counselor present for support. Understand that your questions could take an emotional toll you will not see, such as nightmares. Do not seek such an interview lightly. If it’s not important to your story, or if the story is not important, consider whether the value of the interview is worth the personal cost.

Photographers can intrude on two levels at moments of grief or anxiety: They can intrude physically by even taking a photograph or they can intrude emotionally by publishing the photograph. When loved ones are publicly grieving or waiting fearfully for the outcome of an event, photographers should consider whether they can shoot photographs from a respectful distance, if they think a photograph is necessary. They should look for other photographs that help tell the story. When deciding whether to run such photos, editors should weigh the news value of the photo along with consideration of the privacy of the person grieving. Consider other photographs that would tell the story without being as intrusive.

Coverage of abuse

Writing about victims of domestic or sexual abuse presents decisions that require sensitivity and that change with each case. Newspapers used to have pretty firm rules against identifying victims of sexual assaults because the crime carries a stigma that harms the victims. Some victims today argue that the secrecy conferred by the news media actually feeds that stigma. The best approach often is to present victims with the arguments for openness and respect the victims’ wishes. In cases where you can’t reach the victim, most newspapers do not identify victims of sexual abuse.

Given the damage that fabrication already has done to the media, you should avoid using fictional names when writing about victims of sexual abuse. If you agree not to use a victim’s name, provide enough information about him and his life to make him appear authentic to the reader without identifying him. For instance, you might describe a victim as “a stockbroker in his 40s who was an altar boy at St. Peter’s Parish.” Sometimes you can persuade a victim to be identified by first name, middle name, maiden name or perhaps a childhood nickname (acknowledge in the story how you are identifying the victim). It’s not uncommon for victims of childhood sexual abuse to change their names in adulthood, so you might ask whether you can identify by the birth name. You can report in the story that the person is known by a different name now but not use the name.

Domestic abuse presents other considerations. In addition to concern about the privacy of the victim, you need to weigh valid concerns about her safety.

Domestic and sexual abuse also present reporting challenges as you try to determine what happened. In any story, human memory is a source of varying reliability. Memories of traumatic events can be especially selective. Some memories will be vague or repressed entirely as a means of self-protection. Some will be exaggerated by terror or anger. Some memories will be clouded by tears or adrenaline. When reporting on abuse, you should avoid a detailed focus on the actual incident of abuse unless you have strong reasons to do so and strong confidence in your account. Even if the actual incidents of violence occurred in private, seek interviews and documentation that will support or refute the victims’ accounts about surrounding circumstances.

Rarely are the details of sexual abuse necessary to publish. Consider whether they help readers understand the brutality or depravity of the crime or whether they fit a pattern of a serial rapist.

When you publish stories about domestic or sexual abuse, consider publishing phone numbers and web addresses of services that help such victims.

Covering crime

Crimes thrust victims into the news against their will. Crimes focus unwelcome coverage on defendants and suspects. Journalists should consider a variety of questions in covering routine and spectacular crimes. If the suspect is still at large or likely to be released on bail, consider whether and how identification of the victim or accuser might endanger him. Rarely, if ever, should you use a victim’s precise address, though identification of the neighborhood where a crime occurred can be essential public safety information that your readers need. Of course, a factor in these considerations is whether the suspect knows the victim.

Covering disasters

Disasters ranging from fires and tornadoes to earthquakes and hurricanes thrust people in the news in stressful circumstances. Consider some of these issues as you report on disasters:

• Disaster coverage (or crime coverage, for that matter) does not entitle you to trespass. If you enter private property without permission in pursuit of a story or photograph, you risk prosecution and embarrassment. Authorities might be able to show you the damage to a home when the owners are not there. But if you enter an unsecured, unattended home or business on your own, ask yourself how that makes you different from a looter.
• The trauma of disasters can affect the accuracy of victims’ memories. Rumors can fly and tales grow in the retelling, so seek confirmation of what you are told. Make sure you distinguish first-hand experience from rumor. Track rumors to their sources. Ask who else was present during the fantastic events described.
• Question even official sources. False reporting in the Sago mine disaster and Hurricane Katrina was fed or spread by public officials who didn’t have their facts straight.
• Keep in mind public-service information. The compelling human drama of the disaster is an important part of the story you tell and may be the most appealing to you. But the most important information you report may be information about where victims can receive assistance, where evacuees are sheltered or how people can check on the status of friends or relatives in the disaster zone. Consider an online database where people can connect with missing relatives or get news to worried relatives.
• Choose your words carefully. “Looting” is a loaded word you should use carefully and consistently. “Refugee” and “evacuee” are not necessarily synonymous to all readers.

Coverage of suicide

Suicide presents difficult choices to newspapers. We cannot pretend to have an industry standard here. Some newspapers always report the cause of death in obituaries and make no exception for suicides. Some newspapers do not report suicides unless they involve someone prominent or unless they occur in public.

We should recognize that we will never have consistent coverage of suicide. Most suicides occur in private and families will ask police, funeral directors and other sources newspapers rely on to keep a suicide private. The best a newspaper can claim is that you cover all suicides you learn about.

Whatever your approach to covering suicides, be aware that some research has shown a phenomenon known as “suicide contagion,” where attention to one suicide is believed to contribute to other suicides in the community. Suicides present valid reasons for newspapers to consider whether they should answer two of the basic questions we address in most news stories: Why and how. Suicide experts advise caution in reporting or speculating why a person killed himself or herself. Even if the person leaves a note, that may not be the full story. Immediate speculation about difficulties in the person’s life seldom tells the full picture, the experts say. They also worry about suggestions in news stories that a person killed himself because he was depressed or had been fired or was in marital or financial difficulty. This can imply to readers who are depressed or facing these situations that they are valid causes for suicide, the experts say. If you must address these issues, present them as facts, not as reasons for the suicide, which you can’t really know anyway. Experts also caution against reporting how people kill themselves, especially in detail, because they say that can be suggestive to troubled people as well.

If you have a strong reason to examine the apparent factors in a suicide, be sure to interview some counselors and give them a chance to say that those are not reasons to kill yourself. Even if these factors are not part of the story, consider whether you should interview counselors and publish information about getting help, such as hotline numbers, counselors and services that might help people with similar problems, such as debt counselors and mental health services.

The Centers for Disease Control and several organizations involved in suicide research and prevention have developed recommendations for the news media in covering suicide. In some cases and on some stories, the recommendations go further in the direction of restraint than some journalists will feel comfortable. But their cautions merit consideration and discussion when dealing with suicide stories. Among the reminders for journalists in the recommendations:

• “Research suggests that inadvertently romanticizing suicide or idealizing those who take their own lives by portraying suicide as a heroic or romantic act may encourage others to identify with the victim.
• “Exposure to suicide method through media reports can encourage vulnerable individuals to imitate it. Clinicians believe the danger is even greater if there is a detailed description of the method. Research indicates that detailed descriptions or pictures of the location or site of a suicide encourage imitation.
• “Presenting suicide as the inexplicable act of an otherwise healthy or high-achieving person may encourage identification with the victim.”

Other helpful resources

Matt Thompson’s “Two Suicides, Two Newsrooms, Two Decisions”: http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=61217

Recommendations for reporting on suicide from Centers for Disease Control, American Association of Suicidology et. al.: http://www.afsp.org/education/recommendations/5/1.htm

Kelly McBride’s “Covering Sexual Assault”: http://poynteronline.org/column.asp?id=53&aid=46832

Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma: http://www.dartcenter.org/

Victims and the Media Program: http://victims.jrn.msu.edu/