Talking to a family about a death ...

Another suggestion (if it's not too late): If the fam does prefer a face-to-face, show up with clips of Dad from the paper's files. Any time it was possible for me to do that, I did it. First, it's a nice thing to do. Second, it tends to break the ice and they'll talk more about him.

 

That is great advice. I covered cops for five years and that never occurred to me. Of course, that wasn't always available.

 

Always be careful about leading into humorous anecdotes, etc etc about the deceased. Always let the family member lead you into that area; otherwise you can seem disrespectful or flippant, which can turn people off fast and furiously.

Depending on the circumstances of the death, they may just not want to go there at all. Just ask them to tell you things they'll remember happily about their family member. If they want to tell funny stories, OK; if not, OK too.

I remember years ago I was working as an ME and one of our staff writers did a death-feature story and just totally stomped knee-deep into a swamp of shit by veering off into bad comedy about the deceased in front of the family.

She ended up getting thrown out of the house (almost physically), and then the story ran (while I was out of town on a family emergency of my own) and I ended up having to do several sensitive and beautiful stories to partially patch the damage. The family ended up talking to our paper again, but I think Olivia Oblivious, ace reporter, remained on their shit list.

 

Went to the man's wake tonight and it was tough.

On the one hand, I went to pay my respects to him as a person as he really was a great guy to me and my paper. Loved the fact that he was open and willing to always talk, whether it was after a huge loss (We talked for 30 minutes once about why his team really wasn't any good after they got crushed by 30 points) or after a gigantic win (Like when they proved just about everyone in the state wrong with an upset win in the Super Bowl).

On the other hand, I was there to shoot the event (Well, the line out the door) as we're doing a lot of coverage of his passing. Boy, let me tell you, I had a hard time shooting pictures. I felt like a total scumbag and felt like I was being intrusive, even though my intentions were good.

Anyone else ever have trouble with keeping balance in this type of situation?

 

Being a reporter is hard sometimes, schiez, and that is one of them.

You have to summon the guts to make tough phone calls, write negative stories about people you interact with, go to funerals and sometimes wade way out of your depth.

It's not fun, but it's got to be done or you're not really a journalist.

 

Of course, but keep in mind, and emphasize, that you are HONORING this man, not trying to exploit or intrude.