Why Do The Media Use This Phrase?

[needawin]

If a person is killed in an accident, murdered or some other tragedy why are we always told in the media they were a well respected member of the community. It somehow implies that if they were not a well respected person it could be overlooked as not so important.
A life is a precious thing whether or not they be beggar or king!

[Hopkirk]

I think it's just one of their standard phrases to fill out the article.

When I was a nipper I didn't understand the regularly used phrase 'a man is helping police with their enquiries'.
It was years before I realised it wasn't a good sort, voluntarily giving up his time to help the hard pressed officers.

[elliemay1]

Lol@ Hopkirk!

[gness]

Same as if I get run over, Need.....I'll be described as a sixty seven year old Grandmother.....

Hoppy.....as a child trying to read my dad's paper I thought being charged with manslaughter was the offence of laughing like a man.... :-(

[Hopkirk]

Brilliant Gness

[Tilly2]

It's just one of the many tired, old clichés that are trotted out.

[Jackdaw33]

A classic example of the Latin phrase,'De mortuis nil nisi bonum'.

Only speak good of the dead.

[gness]

Hoppy....as my reading improved I was able to lose the high squeaky laugh I had developed so as not to be arrested for laughing like a man.....because..
I read a report told of a man charged with the manslaughter of a young boy....his defence was that he was tickling him.....I then decided manslaughter was the offence of making someone laugh till they died......
I became a very serious child..... :-)

[scooping]

Is anyone suggesting that the Press not quote family members who say that (plus an awful lot of other clichés) ? Should reporters make something up? The clue's in word reporter.

[bhg481]

Scooping //Should reporters make something up?// Have you ever read a report relating to an incident you witnessed? Having read it, were you sure it was the same incident? Grimm's fairy tales are nearer to the truth than most newspaper reports.

[Hopkirk]

I would like to think I would be described as a respected member of the community. However if asked, most would say 'who?'.

[scooping]

BHJ481: I was a journalist for 30 years and an honest one.

[weecalf]

Yeah speak well of the dead yes,but cause they are dead don't make them better .I often wonder is it only the good that die or is every body good .Just like the old phrase ."lovable rogue " Aye tell us about it ....

[Philoctetes]

Ironic, then, that you get the most important part of your post wrong ;)

[Buenchico]

Perhaps those who use the term 'well-respected member of the community' are aware of the way that conversations go on in pubs and elsewhere? People always seem to be ready to believe the worst about a murder victim.

For example, if a guy in his 20s gets beaten to death in his own home, people will often say (with no justification whatsoever) "I'll bet that he was a drug dealer, who just got what what was coming to him". Similarly, if it was an old guy who got beaten to death, you'll hear people say "He was probably a pedo and one of his victims found out where he was now living and decided to get his own back". If the victim happened to be an Asian shopkeeper there will probably be two sets of rumours going around, with one suggesting that the killing was linked to Islamic terrorism and the other suggesting that he must have been a member of a paedophile gang.

So saying that someone was a 'well-respected member of the community' might just be a way of trying to forestall such rumours.

[andy-hughes]

It is a stock phrase, it's along the lines of dying of cancer.

Unlike any other disease, for some reason, you always die after 'a battle' or 'a battle bravely fought ...' - but only with cancer.

When I had a cancer scare last year (negative) I told my family not to say that I died after any kind of battle, I did not 'battle', I contracted cancer, and I was severely peed off with it from the day I was diagnosed until the day I died, but no 'battle' occurred.

[needawin]

Further to my post of unnecessary details in reporting.
Yesterday tragically a man was shot dead in NI.
Reports say the men escaped by mingling with the crowds of Bank Holiday shoppers, "some of whom carried groceries, paint and wallpaper". What qualifications do you need to be a reporter I wonder!

[mikey4444]

I guess that the media has to say something, and this is better than a lot of things I can think of.