Invasion of privacy or not?

ONE of the biggest stories last week not only in Northglen News but also in the daily newspapers was that of the 32-year-old mother of one, Rose Bell who was killed at her Durban North home on Tuesday, 19 August.

In total this newspaper ran four stories, one of them entitled Murdered woman the ‘Bell’ of her life’s ball. The story detailed Bell’s life. All the information was gleaned from Bell’s Facebook page.

Our newsroom was divided over whether or not we should have run that story. One of our readers commented: “ I think it is totally disgusting that a newspaper feels they have the right to get information of a deceased person from their “open” Facebook page & write a story based on assumptions. How about contacting her family and getting the right information for your “story”!!!

The argument for running the story and using the information leaned towards the fact that Bell had an open Facebook account with no privacy settings. Bell exposed what appeared to be a lavish lifestyle. Our colleague who disagreed with running of the story argued that we were invading her privacy and that her family might be offended. In addition we made and passed no judgment on her lifestyle but rather reported what she put out for public consumption. Nonetheless more than 580 people read the story.

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