{"id":4446,"date":"2024-12-04T01:42:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T01:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaudie.co.uk\/press\/?p=4446"},"modified":"2025-01-13T21:54:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T21:54:18","slug":"the-press-are-problematic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/features\/2024\/12\/04\/the-press-are-problematic\/","title":{"rendered":"The press are problematic"},"content":{"rendered":"

CW: death, uncomfortable conversations about graphic imagery in circulation online<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but the press makes me really angry. That might sound strange; I am a student journalist and you are reading my article in a student newspaper, but I have a problem with journalists and I want to talk about it.<\/p>\n

I am sure you are aware, Liam Payne, formerly of the boyband One Direction, passed away in Argentina in October this year in a truly tragic accident in Buenos Aires. I\u2019m not here to write about his death \u2013 he has been laid to rest and it is time for his family to grieve. But that\u2019s the thing. I don\u2019t care about fame \u2013 everyone deserves to grieve the loss of a loved one in peace, and from the minute Liam Payne passed, his family and friends have not been afforded basic privacy.<\/p>\n

…everyone deserves to grieve the loss of a loved one in peace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Less than an hour after his death, Fox-owned tabloid TMZ had \u2018broken the news.\u2019 Not only had they shared the story of Payne\u2019s tragic death, but they had included a photograph of his body sprawled on the floor of the hotel\u2019s decking. I don\u2019t know what the worst part is: the fact that they deemed it acceptable to share the body of any person after their death, that they thought cropping it would make it any better, or that the editor of TMZ allowed that picture and story to be published before Liam Payne\u2019s family were even aware. I sincerely hope that Liam Payne\u2019s family were able to avoid seeing something so harrowing, and yet I doubt they were, with Payne\u2019s sister posting a tribute to her little brother, sharing that she became aware of his death when \u201cI saw the news pop up on my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

What kind of world do we live in when an innocent woman finds out her baby brother has passed away on the news? I don\u2019t care how big of a Liam fan you were, the first people to learn about this tragedy should have been his family.<\/p>\n

In the weeks following his death, the media were obsessed. As medics began to investigate the cause of death, rumours circulated online, fuelled by tabloids, with journalists desperate for the next \u2018big headline.\u2019 Before toxicology results were confirmed, articles were published accusing Payne of consuming a \u2018cocktail of drugs,\u2019 with photos of his hotel room also circulated online. In the end, it turned out Payne had not consumed the alleged cocktail \u2013 but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s any journalist\u2019s place to tell you what he did in his private life, and so I will afford him the decency he deserved.<\/p>\n

As the date of his funeral loomed, I personally felt a sense of dread for Liam Payne\u2019s family and friends, particularly his parents and his seven-year-old son Bear. After the press followed Payne\u2019s dad Geoff in Buenos Aires, filming a grieving man as he went to Argentina to take his son back to the UK, I knew they would stop at nothing to get a shot of his funeral, and I wasn\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n

I knew they would stop at nothing to get a shot of his funeral, and I wasn\u2019t wrong…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last Wednesday, in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, Liam Payne was finally laid to rest. I had hoped that Liam could be laid to rest, with his friends and family able to grieve in peace. Instead, dozens of media outlets gathered outside the church, desperate to catch a glimpse of his family and One Direction bandmates in mourning. Reportedly, the Payne family had to strike up a deal with the press: that they could film the stars entering the funeral, as long as Liam\u2019s young son was allowed to attend the funeral in peace.<\/p>\n

It is sickening to think a grieving child would be photographed. Worse yet, many of the headlines following the funeral were about the One Direction boys \u2018reuniting\u2019 at the funeral and accusing Liam\u2019s girlfriend Kate Cassidy of \u2018not being sad enough.\u2019 Even the BBC reported that Harry Styles was in attendance. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I am a huge Harry Styles fan, but it\u2019s none of my business if he, or any of the 1D boys went to the funeral, and it\u2019s not yours either.<\/p>\n

The coverage of Liam Payne\u2019s death, and the lack of tact in the way that it has been covered is sadly nothing new. In an infamous front page, The Sun<\/em> printed false information about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, printing a series of accusations about Liverpool FC fans, on the day that 96 were tragically killed. The Sun<\/em> used their power to absolve the police of responsibility. It wasn\u2019t until 1990 that the Taylor Inquiry into the disaster found that no fans were at fault, and that instead, the police had been. To this day, many of the families of the 97 who died as a direct result of the disaster feel justice is yet to prevail.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, when a Scotrail train derailed in Stonehaven in 2020, The Sun\u2019s<\/em> front page headline was \u2018Death Express,\u2019 and reportedly their journalists forced their way through fields to take photos of the wreckage where the driver, conductor, and one passenger sadly died.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just The Sun<\/em> and TMZ, with tabloids like the Daily Mail<\/em> publishing hundreds of hateful narratives attacking marginalised people, often invoking culture wars, including sexualising women, creating a platform othering Muslim women, and creating a moral panic over asylum seekers. People so desperate to seek a safe life, they traverse the sometimes-treacherous conditions of the English Channel in nothing more than a rubber dingy.<\/p>\n

The point is, journalists wield a huge amount of power, and as the saying goes: \u2018with great power comes great responsibility.\u2019 It\u2019s our job as journalists \u2013 and that includes student journalists \u2013 to be aware of the power of reporting at every stage. We must carefully consider the words used, the angles we take, our readers, and the impact our words have. I don\u2019t think we should tar all journalists with the same brush, but Liam Payne\u2019s death showed that toxicity exists in every branch of journalism.<\/p>\n

To other student journalists: as journalists of the future, we must be the change. Rather than reporting with self-betterment in mind, we should focus on reporting the truth, as and when it is appropriate to do so. We shouldn\u2019t sensationalise \u2013 we are reporters, not entertainers. Our job is to give a voice to the voiceless, and to inform. Before we hit publish, we must ask ourselves \u2013 who needs to know this and why? Journalism is a force for good, and we as journalists have helped shine light on many serious issues, but journalism has its problems, and it is time we acknowledged it.<\/p>\n

News Associates will host a Media Ethics workshop for all aspiring journalists on Wednesday 4th December from 10:00-13:00. Sign up at: https:\/\/forms.gle\/ofPxTbR1AcYWyJwQ7<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CW: death, uncomfortable conversations about graphic imagery in circulation online<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":4427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":32,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[290,327,188,286,281,328],"wf_post_folders":[322],"class_list":{"0":"post-4446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"tag-death","9":"tag-ethics","10":"tag-kirsten-koss","11":"tag-liam-payne","12":"tag-one-direction","13":"tag-press"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Kirsten Koss","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/kirsten-koss\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/British-Pakistani-Index-via-X-300x202.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Features<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Features<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Death<\/a>","Ethics<\/a>","Kirsten Koss<\/a>","Liam Payne<\/a>","One Direction<\/a>","Press<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Death<\/span>","Ethics<\/span>","Kirsten Koss<\/span>","Liam Payne<\/span>","One Direction<\/span>","Press<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 years ago","modified":"Updated 2 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 4 December 2024","modified":"Updated on 13 January 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 4 December 2024 01:42","modified":"Updated on 13 January 2025 21:54"},"featured_img_caption":"Photograph: Adamtepl via Pixabay","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5046,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions\/5046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}