reporting


cause than a one-line explanation and weblink to their charity or GoFundMe,” says Bradford. “It’s very important to manage expectations from the start.” While The Guardian’s Windrush campaign shows how


personal testimonies can transform policy and practice, there are often limitations to what can be achieved by opening up. “I feel guilty when I don’t use what [they] say and they’ve


invested in speaking to me and revisited something traumatic,” says Kirstie Brewer, who writes case-study-led stories for BBC Stories. There’s more guilt, when an interviewee contacts her a couple of months later “wanting you to do more and, actually, you can’t”. Having more time, as she now does at the BBC, to develop relationships with interviewees means she can spend longer explaining how the story might look when published, and help prepare them for the online reaction. Yet lines can sometimes feel blurry. In fostering the trust


that allows interviewees to feel safe enough to relive painful experiences, I personally struggle because they may believe the relationship is closer than it really is. NUJ ethics council chairman Professor Chris Frost says:


“You can’t carry on as a journalist unless people trust you, but you have to be transparent that what you’re doing is a story on them – and that your editor is very likely going to be pressing for details that, when in the open, they might not like.” Branding journalists’ interactions with people in distress as exploitative does not acknowledge the constructive function of telling these stories, argues Jackie Newton, journalism


“ ”


I feel guilty when I don’t use what they say and they’ve invested in speaking to me and revisited something traumatic


course leader at Liverpool John Moores University, and co-author of Reporting Bad News: Negotiating the Boundaries Between Intrusion and Fair Representation in Media Coverage of Death. Not only can stories help the interviewee ‘because they acknowledge grief and loss, [providing] a societal acceptance that they have lost something and that we care’, she says, but also it helps hold power to account. “People who are bereaved have the right to talk about their experience in an uncensored way, on things that we might self-censor,” she says. Brian Woods, the multi-award-winning director of True Vision


TV, operates on the principle that contributors can withdraw consent at any point during a filming process that may last months or even years. The relationship journalists build with case studies is different from a friendship, he says, “but it’s also different to a professional relationship that a doctor might have with a patient – it is more intimate in some ways and akin to a friendship, but not a friendship, and you need to be clear”. However, Woods is also clear that if people are letting you


into their life, ‘if you can help them, why wouldn’t you?’ The risk lies, he says, in encouraging dependence. Certain


people, because of their vulnerabilities, may stretch boundaries. “We made a film with a woman who was addicted to drugs, who ended up texting the producer 20 or 30 times a day, wanting money and wanting her to go up there and sort out her life,” he remembers. “Then you have to say, well, making the film was a professional act and, while we’re happy to support you as far we can, no we can’t just give you money or come up.” Though the producer spent many hours on the phone listening and helping her, eventually the contributor had to be blocked. Ultimately, says Woods, what journalists do is ‘try to bring


attention not only to people’s plight as individuals, but also to everyone who is living in the same situation.’ And that is often what swings a person’s decision to talk to journalists – a motivation of generosity as well as of wanting to be heard. Perhaps with complete respect and clarity from the off, so


that both journalist and case study understand what each is getting from the interaction and what level of control each has, we don’t need to feel guilty any more, or that we’re exploiting people’s pain for our own purposes.


theJournalist | 17


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