You’re out for a walk and you spot something strange in a stream. You go to investigate and you realise it’s a human skull.
What do you do? I suspect I’m not alone in saying you’d ring the police and let them take it from there.
I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t pick it up, take it home, ring the local paper to have my picture taken with it and then hand it over to the police for forensic examination.
Still, just as well not everyone thinks like me, or else the Lancashire Telegraph wouldn’t have had what must be one of the most remarkable front page posed pictures I’ve seen in a long time: Great story.
The front page of the Lancashire Telegraph
David, I was wondering what you think of the journalistic professional ethics in this situation. If you’d received the call, what would you have done? Would you have asked her to call the police before interviewing? Would you have had any concerns about sending a photographer out to potentially recent human remains?
Good question. I think, in all honesty, if the skull had already been removed I’d have been tempted to get the story in the bag first – not least because it would have been ten times harder to do the story once the police press office was involved.