A Reporter's Perspective On People In Pain

Dealing with people who are dealing with grief is one of the most difficult parts of a journalist's job. Just as every story is different, so is the reaction of those involved when approached by the media. Ten News reporter Ben Lewis has noticed a shift in attitudes, particularly among media-savvy young people, who are finding themselves increasingly empowered.

Ben Lewis

Here are two words I hate hearing on the news: tragic accident. They're overused and cliched, but often there's no better way to describe the pointless loss of life.

It's the unexpected nature of ‘tragic accidents’ that makes them a mixed bag to cover. Some people caught up in the story want to talk, others don't. Of those, some will politely decline an interview, some will be more forceful and that's understandable.

But the way people caught up in a tragedy respond to approaches from journalists is changing, and a recent experience has shown me that it's young people, increasingly media savvy, who know more about how we work, and how to get their message across, than many in the professional PR game.

Late last year, I covered the sentencing of the 14-year-old New South Wales boy charged with drug possession in Denpasar. An interesting story, and relatively straight forward. Just around the corner, though, was a yarn that would require a bit more 'chasing.’

Once the boy had been sentenced, we filed, did a dozen or so live crosses, and then filed again the next day. Just as my cameraman and I thought there might be a chance to relax before our flight home, we got 'the call'. An 18-year-old Gosford man, in Bali for Schoolies Week, had touched a neon sign that had a live current running through it and was electrocuted.

Deadline pressures meant we broadcast a 'look-live' with as many details as we had at the time. With the evening news out of the way, we jumped in a taxi and headed to where the young man had died.

It doesn't matter if you're in Denpasar or Dandenong, the 'to do list' is pretty straightforward for a story like this. Go to the scene. Look for witnesses. Learn the victim's name. Find the victim's friends. Ring the victim's family. It's how a reporter's brain works (at least mine does, I hope I'm not alone in that) and any comprehensive story about a ‘tragic accident’ will have those elements in it.

It didn't take long to learn the Gosford teenager's name. In an example of how modern technology occasionally makes the job easier, a school friend of his tweeted the details. Of course, we would not put it to air without confirmation from DFAT or the family, which we received a short time later.

Finding his mates in Kuta didn't take long either.

While the young people from Gosford High were all legally adults, you have to take extra care when talking to a teenager who is extremely distressed. This group of young men and women wanted to mourn their mate, but weren't able to leave the country straight away, due to the police investigation.

I approached a couple of members of the group at their hotel, with another journalist from a rival network. Our cameramen waited outside. The two young men who spoke to us were clearly distraught. We offered our condolences and asked how they were coping. Cynics will roll their eyes, but my colleague and I were genuinely concerned about their wellbeing.

We asked if they would like to speak about their mate. They said they were in no emotional state to be interviewed, but would meet with the rest of their group the next day, and decide if they wanted to say a few words, perhaps have one person act as a spokesman.

I told them that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. We shook hands and agreed to talk in the morning.

Ben Lewis reports from Indonesia

After a few hours sleep, we returned to their hotel, and ran into the same two guys. The conversation that followed proved that many young people now have an excellent understanding of how the media works.

The pair expressed concern about people who weren't actually the victim's friends being quoted in the media as ‘friends.’ It's true that too often someone will speak about a victim when they may not be particularly close to them at all. It's not usually malicious, but grief does strange things to people.

They asked what we had reported in the previous day's stories, but they already knew the answer. They had watched the news on their iPhones.

They were particularly concerned that the group would be portrayed in the media as ‘schoolies’ involved in a drunken incident. Of course, that was not true at all. The boys had been well behaved, the death completely accidental.

No media outlets reported it as misbehaviour, which pleased the group of mates.

They wanted to know if any 'grabs' they gave us would be edited. Could we chop and change what they said? The question wasn't born out of a mistrust of journalists, or the media in general, but simply knowledge of how a television news story is put together. They knew that only ten seconds of what they said would make it to air.

I suggested they could write a statement, two sentences long, then read it in front of camera. They considered the idea.

Eventually, the group made the decision not to speak.

But it was polite in declining our request. The rival journalist and I told the group we would leave its hotel, and we did. As we walked away, we both commented on what an impressive group of young people we had met. Even in such a difficult, emotionally-charged situation, they were courteous, and used their knowledge of how the media works to consider the impact their actions could have on the victim's family and other friends.

Of course, we could have chased the victim's friends into the hotel, camera rolling, but what would we have achieved? A shot of a crying mate running away, refusing to talk. They knew if they said nothing when approached with a microphone and rolling camera, we had nothing to run in a story. They would only speak on their terms.

Not everyone is as savvy or courteous as the young men and women from Gosford High, but I'd be willing to bet there are a lot of young people out there who have a similar understanding of how the news works. They're easy to spot - look for the ones asking the journalist questions before agreeing to an interview.

And perhaps it's not such a bad thing. At least it proves the 'youth' still watch the 5 o'clock news.

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