Monday, November 05, 2007

Covering Funerals

The decision process of reporting on funerals…

Although we, as news folk, must make decisions daily on how to cover certain events that are happening in the area, there are a couple of events that usually require a little bit more debate on how to cover them. Funerals of people that we have covered in the news are definitely one of those decisions.
Today, former Sheriff John Baker Jr. was being laid to rest. During this morning’s news meeting, we were debating on how we were going to cover the services.  First of all, as an assignment editor, I make the calls to find out if the services will be open to the media. In today’s case, the family had invited the media to be there for the funeral, so we were cleared to come. Next, we had to decide how we wanted to cover the services. We decided to send a crew to tape and record the services. Since Sheriff Baker was a leader in the community and known to many people, we decided to cover his services. It is a good opportunity for us to share the services with viewers who might not have been able to attend.
We treat every funeral differently and don’t usually cover all of them. What are your thoughts on the media covering funerals? Email me at .