-----Original Message-----
From: William Stuart
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 10:01 PM
Subject: Waiting for notification

I am not a journalist. I came across your website, because I am trying to
find information on waiting for official family notification before
reporting the name of someone who has died.

Specifically, I am concerned with the wide reporting of Corey Lidle's death
while his father, wife and child were not notified. The[y] even reported the
fact that the family had not been notified.

Is this considered ethical behavior now or does your organization consider
this unethical?

See this article I found on espn.com:
Lidle's dad learned of plane crash on television [1]
By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com

William Stuart

CCJ Executive Director Jeffrey Dvorkin's response:

Dear Mr. Stuart,

We have two conflicting issues here: first, the traditional obligation to
wait to get confirmation of a death from the authorities. Normally, police
or other groups don't release the names until the next of kin have been
notified. In the Lidle case, this evidently was not done.

In the hothouse of this story (post 9/11, plane crash in a Manhattan
building, plus the usual the NY media frenzy) getting the story first,
without regard to the niceties of waiting for the authorities, meant that
news organizations were going to go all out.

My guess is that news directors (and the journalists who work for them) were going all out to get this one first and fast.

If newsrooms are going to do a post-mortem on their coverage (do newsrooms still do that?), they should ask themselves if anyone called the FAA to confirm who was on the plane.

Who first reported that Lidle was the pilot? How did the information that
Lidle was the pilot get released? Did news organizations violate their own
policies by not determining whether the next-of-kin had been notified? Did
the FAA err in not notifying the family first?

Mr. Stuart raises some important issues and it seems to me there is more to
report on this story.

Jeffrey

[top] [2]

What do you think? Was information indicating the plane was Lidle's released too soon? Did TV stations and networks run with Lidle's identification sooner than they needed to? Or do you believe Lidle's standing as a public figure trumped the need for following next-of-kin notification protocols in this case? Let us know below.