Swedish tabloid reporters rush to homes of Kauhajoki victims before officials get there

print this

Reporters working for the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen visited the homes of the next of kin of three of the victims of the Kauhajoki shootings before officials had been there to notify the families of the tragedy, according to the website of the Swedish Union of Journalists.
      Pastor Kaj Engström, who accompanied police to officially notify relatives about the tragedy, confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat that he arrived at the home of one family, which had already been visited by Expressen.
     
“We had notified the next of kin in advance that we would be coming. When we came, the relatives were angry and said that a quarter of an hour earlier, a man and a woman had shown up to bring them the news”, Engström says.
      The man and the woman turned out to be from Expressen. The family members were very upset about their visit.
      Engström says that there could have been a misunderstanding, as the families were waiting for a police delegation.
     
“There seems to have been something strange going on, as they probably did not explicitly say ‘we are from the newspaper Expressen ‘”.
      Engström heard about two other cases from the police, in which a Swedish journalist with a Finnish interpreter showed up at the home of someone whose family member had been killed in the shooting before officials got there.
      “People were just as angry there”, Engström says.
      Viveca Hansson, managing editor of Expressen denies that any of the newspaper’s journalists would have posed as anything other than a journalist.
      “That would be against our rules. Our journalist also left a calling card with the family”, Hansson says.
      Expressen is looking into the matter.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police say Saari fired nearly 200 shots, spoke on phone during school shootings
  Kauhajoki tries to get by despite pain and sorrow (26.9.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat