by Derek Bateman

I HAD AN uncomfortable moment reading the plaintive pleas of a mother whose grown-up daughter died of flu in the winter outbreak. She was posting on Facebook about being harassed by reporters for details and photos and mentioned in particular the Daily Mail. It’s bad enough dealing with the shock of loss without strangers badgering for personal information.

Yet that’s exactly what I used to do. As reporters one of the duties they didn’t tell us about at college was the Death Knock – approaching a grieving family to get personal details of the deceased and, hopefully, convince them to part with an upto-date picture. That was the Holy Grail.

It took nerve to knock on a door, look into the teary eyes of a distraught dad and tell him the papers were interested in a story about his son’s death – sorry for your loss, etc. But we did it because it was expected. Everybody, pretty much, did it and it was part of the culture of news-gathering in evening papers and the tabloids. Like all unpleasant tasks, it developed its own ethos and folklore.