Hereâe(TM)s the scene: The funeral for a three-year-old boy who was killed when a pickup truck slammed into a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop in Aurora, Colorado. Family members and friends gather as a Rabbi leads them through the service for the dead boy, Marten Kudlis.

Members of the media are there as well. One of them, from the Rocky Mountain News, isnâe(TM)t just watching, isnâe(TM)t just making notes on a pad for a story later that day. The newspaper reporter, Berny Morson, is Twittering the funeral service live, 140 characters at a time. In short, staccato posts, he walks a live Twitter audience through the event:

09:16 AM September 10, 2008 from txt
rabbi recites 23rd psalm.

09:28 AM September 10, 2008 from txt
family member says marten is with grandmother who died last year.
âe~marten we loved you,âe(TM) he says. People sobbing.

Morson got permission from Martenâe(TM)s family to cover the event. After viewing the Twitter feed following the event the Rabbi, David Zucker, said he saw nothing in the what Morson did as being âeoein anyway offensive.âe

But, hours after the Twitter coverage of the funeral, members of the general public and the media rained down vitriol and condemnation on the heads of Morson and the Rocky Mountain News. Commenters on the Rocky Mountain News website wrote:

âeoeA high-tech vulture is still a vulture. The sob-sister mentality that seems to control the News does no credit to the profession of journalism. There are âe~realâe(TM) stories to cover. A funeral is not one of themâe . Other commenters called it an âeoeabsurd actionâe and âeoebad taste all the way around.âe

Posters at SportsJournalists.com were calling for the editor and reporter to be fired. At the Poynter Online columnist Michelle Ferrier called the coverage âeoea trickâe and added âeoeI think the glitz of technology has taken over common sense.âe

And, at the Daily Kos, they called the coverage âeoerepulsive.âe

So, letâe(TM)s pull back from this a bit. Hereâe(TM)s a reporter, who with the familyâe(TM)s permission, covers the tragic event for his paper. He could have made notes in his notebook. He could have taken the gist of those notes and turned them into a story that would appear a few hours later online (as doubtless other reporters were doing around him). He could have even tapped those notes into a small laptop for later reference. Instead, he made his notes live using a relatively new (at least for newspapers) technology.

So, what is the problem with that? And, more importantly, why all the hate? I asked the first question on Twitter just after news broke about Morson twittering the funeral.

Twitters thought it was âeoetackyâe and âeoeunprofessionalâe and that the reporter used âeoepoor judgment.âe One wrote, âeoeThat funeral on twitter was just wrong, wrong, wrong.âe Another felt Twitter trivialized the funeral, especially the âeoeplay-by-playâe aspect of the medium.

This is fascinating. Members of the general public who, likely, donâe(TM)t know much about daily journalism nor Twitter, disapprove. Some journalists, who certainly do understand the role of journalism and its intrusive nature and reality in tragic events, disapprove, even if they donâe(TM)t know much about Twitter. And, some Twitterers, who may not know much about how journalism (Twittered or not) works, donâe(TM)t like it so much.

So, whatâe(TM)s going on? It would be easy to argue that this is a classic reaction to a new technology. That would be an especially easy argument to make about journalists, who often embrace new technology with the passion of a nudist hugging a cactus. But, that doesnâe(TM)t explain the revulsion of ardent Twitterers. So, thereâe(TM)s something else at play here.

Some observers have pointed out that the writing was mundane. But, thatâe(TM)s beside the point. I agree, the content is plodding and uninspired. But what if it had been tight, emotive and evocative? Then it would be okay?

Some commenters suggested that live coverage of a funeral isnâe(TM)t suitable for Twitter. But, how can anyone dictate what a medium should be used for. Surely thatâe(TM)s determined by usage over time, not by sanction early in the game. And the âeoeplay-by-playâe nature of the coverage? We see that all the time on radio and television, both of which have covered funerals and are much more intrusive that typing on a mobile device.

So, whatâe(TM)s the rejection about?

I think the answer is buried in our âeoecavemanâe brain and its âeoegutâe reactions. Journalist Dan Gardner explores this idea in his book Risk – The Science and Politics of Fear. Gardner, relying on a host of psychological studies, points out that we have two brains, a rational, logical one that takes time to consider inputs, risk/benefits and context and a faster, âeoegut-levelâe one that makes snap decisions based on familiar patterns and in-the-moment evidence. The problem is, as Gardner points out, even when we make gut-level decisions our more rational brain tries to make logical arguments for what are essentially emotional, irrational choices.

Thatâe(TM)s whatâe(TM)s going on here. Journalists know, rationally, that making notes in a notebook and making live notes in a Blackberry is the same thing, in terms of intrusiveness. And, they know that the voyeuristic aspects of journalism have always been and will be. Journalists at funerals are not family and are not really mourners, they are public surrogates, thatâe(TM)s all.

Twitterers know that Twitter is used for all manner of personal, mundane, important, trival, stupid and serious purposes. We are all trying to find the best ways to use the medium for our purposes – personal and professional. Covering a funeral is a valid as any other purpose.

But, beneath that rational knowledge is the gut-level reaction to the death of a small child and the sanctity of that death that, emotionally we find difficult to mesh with the 140 taps of a live keypad. When we try to explain that disconnect, we use the rationalizations of our professions or avocations.

But, in the end, in this case, there was simply death among us, a passing we have noted for thousands of years. And now, whether we like it or not, we will share it in a new way.

wayne

Wayne MacPhail

Wayne MacPhail has been a print and online journalist for 25 years. He was the managing editor of Hamilton Magazine and was a reporter and editor at The Hamilton Spectator until he founded Southam InfoLab,...