twitting/tweeting from a funeral service...

[shockey]

yea or nay? or, in this case, kosher or non-kosher?: the boston herald's ian rappaport voted yea/kosher today from the temple service for myra kraft, beloved wife of patriots owner robert kraft. i know first-hand what a lovely lady she was -- kind, generous, everything you'd want in a team's matriarch...

but is tweeting, twitting re: her funeral service acceptaple? ian says he didn't actually 'tweet' DURING the temple service, only before and after. but, c'mon. i'm totally down with the new technology and social networking use for journalists. but shouldn't it be limited to 'breaking news' you feel you MUST get out there first? this surely wasn't that. what, this couldn't wait the 30 minutes it takes t pound out, you know, the story?

interested in everyone's take, especially since thise whole twitting/tweeting thing is foreign to me. i'm soooo happy i missed out on it.

http://twitter.com/#!/rapsheet


glad i'm not the one who has to live with the fact this is what my career has been reduced to. fwiw, ian primarily responded with a 'it's my job' defense. then returned home for a looooong shower, i'd guess.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Re: ian rapport twits-tweets-whatever...

It depends what he tweeted. I can't access twitter at work, so I don't know what he wrote.

If he did it during the service, that would be really bad.

If he was tweeting about who was there and stuff like that, there's nothing wrong with that. He's just reporting news.

But I agree with you, I'm glad I was never in a position to decide what was acceptable and what was not...

 

[JPsT]

Re: ian rapport twits-tweets-whatever...

Why should Twitter be limited to breaking news?

Is your issue with it a debate about whether or not she's a public figure? Surely you wouldn't have any trouble with the same coverage of, say, a President's funeral or something. If so, why?

It's not like he was snapping photos of the casket or something. That would obviously cross the line. For me, tweeting before and after the service about all the memories shared of her life and who all was there is par for the course. The only thing I would say gave me pause is that it seems like he may have tweeted from the house of worship. I know different places vary, but I would give great consideration before I whipped out my cell phone in any sort of sacred place.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

If you're sitting in a funeral and typing into a Blackberry, that's classless.

It's pretty clear Ian was not doing that.

 

[T&C]

I was at a funeral for a well-known local sports figure and businessman yesterday. Now that I think about it I didn't see one person with their phone out. And that was in the church and right outisde. Tweeting during a service or standing there right oustide texting or speaking on the phone while people are still exiting the chitrch or funeral home would be IMO very tasteless.

 

[SF_Express]

Does anybody remember when this came up with the Denver Post or maybe even the Rocky several years ago, tweeting the funeral of a young child? It was a huge deal at the time. Still a discussion now, but I'm thinking the outrage factor has been reduced with the growth of Twitter as a reporting tool.

 

[shockey]

well, he claims it wasn't during the service, just prior to and after. unclear if he did it in the temple itself, or a lobby, or his car. and certainly nothing he tweeted was in any way disrespectful. just that he felt the need too do it, the demand to do it, just leaves me feeling dirty.

a public figure? i suppose. but i put mysrelf in ian's shoes as someone who has 'covered' the funerals of the late leon hess and wellington mara. and am proud to report that, if my editor told me to 'tweet' the particulars asap so our readers could feel up-to-speed on the attendees, i'd have declined to do so.

but, as i said, maybe that's just me. that's why i asked the class. i'm anxious to hear more of an explanation regarding the details -- where did he tweet from, primarily, i suppose. and yes, it is newsworthy, and there surely was a mobof reporters in attendance hoping to get commissioner goodell, demaurice, any player rep or owners, outside the temple to speak to the news of the day.

 

[21]

Unless the deceased rises from the casket, thus creating actual news, there is zero reason--zero--to tweet during a funeral service. Just a vile thing to do. What possible 'right to know' exists among those on the receiving end of those tweets?

Before and after, outside the church or synagogue, that's different.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Can someone post what he tweeted?

 

[21]

You have to follow it from the start:

http://twitter.com/#!/rapsheet

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/60975/

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Can someone post what he tweeted?

Nothing remotely disrespectful. Before the service he tweeted about who was there, and after he tweeted about what people said. Much ado about nothing.

I assume this became an "issue" because a few of his early tweets read like he was live-tweeting the funeral, but he wasn't. It hadn't started yet.

 

[21]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/60975/

Putting aside the funeral issue, interesting to read the opinions on tweeting, just three years ago.

 

[shockey]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/60975/

excellent pull, piotr! 10 pages in 17 days! i can see where this would've been the hottest of j-topics almost three years ago. now i suppose we've numbed to most of it.

again, most of y'all active folks know this terrain better than i do these days. i repeat: i miss being able to work anymore; i DO NOT miss being a part in the technological 'progress' the industry has made. even back in the day there were aspects of the gig that were difficult to navigate as a human being -- i.e., calling the mother of a teen killed in gang warfare, anything of that ilk. but at least that was in an attempt to build the best story possible.

twitting a play-by-play of a funeral? NEVER. doing the sort of pre-game/post-game 'tweeting' ian says he did? i dunno. still strikes me as slimy. perhaps most importantly, UNNECESSARY...


the 'public figure' part of the argument even leaves me questioning the defense. sure, a 'public figure' in that she became known because of who she was married to and then in recgnition of her good deeds. but she wasn't an elected official. or an attention-craved celebrity.

she was a great lady who passed away. her death/funeral is news worthy of coverage. i'm simply questioning the importance attached to the immediacy of reporting details, that's all.

just strikes me wrong. if that makes me a dinosaur, well, guilty as charged. i'd like to believe there are people under 30 who are as uneasy about this as i am but maybe not.

it's still okay for me to opine that i think it sucks, though, right? or maybe i should tweet it someplace... now, if i only had a twitter account...

 

[jlee]

I would bet that he didn't look out of place even if he was typing on a phone just outside the area. When you think about who was at the service -- prominent folks taking time out of busy schedules -- I'd wager there were dozens of people checking their Blackberrys and iPhones for e-mails, texts and tweets.

The event was newsworthy because people wanted to know who attended and what was said. The reporter distributed that information quickly and accurately, and refrained from doing so during the service. Taking notes or using a recorder during the service, to me, seems like more of a faux pas.

 

[jlee]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/60975/

excellent pull, piotr! 10 pages in 17 days! i can see where this would've been the hottest of j-topics almost three years ago. now i suppose we've numbed to most of it.

Numb? I would argue the ramifications and ethics of Twitter have been discussed enough that good journalists know how to use it properly.

 

[shockey]

Numb? I would argue the ramifications and ethics of Twitter have been discussed enough that good journalists know how to use it properly.

argue that all you'd like but i was made aware of this by quite a 'good' journalist who called me to say how out of line he thought it. now, granted, this was before we before we became aware that ian didn't do his active 'tweeting' DURING the ceremony. but for those who now consider this a non-issue, a no-brainer, regardless of where he was tweeting from, well, as i said, bless all of the present-day reporters can do this without flinching at all.

 

[jlee]

Numb? I would argue the ramifications and ethics of Twitter have been discussed enough that good journalists know how to use it properly.

argue that all you'd like but i was made aware of this by quite a 'good' journalist who called me to say how out of line he thought it. now, granted, this was before we before we became aware that ian didn't do his active 'tweeting' DURING the ceremony. but for those who now consider this a non-issue, a no-brainer, regardless of where he was tweeting from, well, as i said, bless all of the present-day reporters can do this without blanching at all.

No. It's not a non-issue, nor a no-brainer.

It's something that you have to think about, and something that "good" journalists think about before doing.

It goes back to the notes/recorder thing. There you are, at a funeral, taking notes and thinking "well, maybe I'll paraphrase that" and "what's my lede?" I just don't see how tweeting outside the service is any more disrespectful.

 

[ondeadline]

It's tweeting, not twitting. I have no idea what twitting is, though I think Monty Python might have done a skit about it way before Twitter ever started.

 

[Stitch]

If Ian was in the right, why is he so defensive? When you mix "Pimpin' ain't easy" in your stream with this, you lose credibility. Just another case of why the need to report everything all the time is destroying journalism.