Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Yes, I expected you to be along to defend them. ;)
My view is not changed, as far as I'm concerned this has made this into a national media event, with their help, its no good complaining about it at this stage, is just a little too late. "There would have to be an overwhelming public interest argument to justify their continuing" - it seems to me there was one - 170,000 people disappear every year, and yet this was turned into a national story.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

When employed as a journalist, adherence to the editors’ code was part of my contract of employment. So yes, naturally I’m aware of what it says and, having done more ‘death knocks’ than I care to remember, am personally aware of just how distressing even that first approach to a bereaved family can be for them, before they’ve even considered having to ask reporters to leave them alone (thereby leaving us technically free to do so, with due sensitivity).

Oddly enough these provisions were enough to keep all the other major news outlets away, at least in the immediate aftermath of Nicola’s body being discovered. Sky and ITV are the outliers here.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Speaking to the media dies not give them permission to contact you when they want to, whatever your state of distress and your explicit requests not to.

I wouldn't blame the family for trying to raise awareness of her disappearance in the hope that she would be found alive. It's the responsible thing to do.

In this context, I can't see that there is a public interest exemption. Public interest concerns matters like energy pricing, the running of local councils, congestion zones, etc. It's not about how often a missing person story appears in the news or the number of sightseers.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Of course it does.

You see what you want to see. ;) You cant go making a media fuss and then complain when the media tries to contact you.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

You need to make a distinction between what you think is reasonable behaviour and how journalists are obliged to behave via their industry code of practice.

Your opinion, obviously, is yours - you may well think it’s obvious that the family’s prior contact with journalists gives those journalists the right to behave as some of them have over the past 24 hours.

However, in terms of the code of conduct they are held accountable to - it empirically does not.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

I'm not sure appealing for witnesses to someone's disappearance can be called a fuss!

Nor should appealing for witnesses give the media a 24/7 direct line to you. You don't sell your entire personal rights forever to the media when you do that.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Not really. :angel:

They specifically complained about the media "making contact" with them.
Given that a body had been found [unidentified at the time] then its perfectly reasonable that they would want to speak to them.
That contact was presumably refused, and that was that, since they dont say anyone continued to hassle them, only that they "contacted them".

Yes, its very unfortunate how this ended [and sadly it went as everyone expected] and its terrible for for her children.
However, as far as I'm concerned, the "family" are just lashing out at the media for doing their job, when there really was no need to do so.
[ Not even just the media, they also attack members of the public for "accusing their dad of wrongdoing, misquoted and vilified friends and family" ].
Not sure what thats about, Ive seen this is the news every day for 3 weeks and not seen him accused of anything.

Anyway, I'm not going to spend hours going over this, we can agree to disagree. Thats life.

---------- Post added at 23:11 ---------- Previous post was at 23:10 ----------

Stick to politics Andrew.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

It's unfair to my fellow forum contributors to limit my contributions to just one area. ;)

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

I don't.I buy no newspapers and I avoid TV news as much as possible apart from watching local TV news(for local news).24 hour news channels are/was a big mistake IMHO.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

It’s not looking great for ITV or Sky this morning.

The former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Baroness Wheatcroft, has gone on the Today programme this morning to demand the press regulator look into their conduct. Meanwhile, the former Editor-in-Chief of ITN, Stewart Purvis, believes if ITV and Sky thought they had a decent defence against the allegations of unwarranted intrusion they would have aired it by now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-64713045

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Hopefully it will as, if there was any foul play involved, the person responsible needs to be caught.

If she had mental health problems or had been drinking she may simply have jumped in or her dog might have pulled her in.

An accident as opposed to suicide or foul play would probably provide her family with a crumb of comfort.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

Celebrities using the media to get famous does not give the media the right to hound them in their private life.

Getting the media involved to help in a missing person case does not give the media the right to pester the family.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

I find this whole saga very weird. Totally unhealthy obsession by all sorts of people: news outlets, social media, etc.

I feel so sorry for the family.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

I think the case received more attention/interest than other missing persons cases because of the unique circumstances of her dissappearnce.

My heart goes out for her family too.

Re: Nicola Bulley disappearance: police find body in river
 

I feel that this is the essential point here. There are so many missing people and this one gets all this airtime, personal intrusion, etc. So wrong. Feels more like a Victorian freak show ...