The newsroom job nobody wants

It wasn’t my finest hour.

It was November 1999 and I was working the Breakfast shift in the Triple M Melbourne newsroom when the news came through that legendary West Indian cricketer Malcolm Marshall had died at the age of just 41.

In accordance with my position in the newsroom pecking order, I was tasked with doing the dreaded ‘death knock.’

If you’re not familiar with this term, a ‘death knock’ happens when a high-profile person dies, and journos solicit comment from people who had a close relationship with the deceased.

I don’t know anybody who’s ever volunteered to do one. Nine times out of ten, it’s awkward. In my case, it was a total debacle.

Marshall’s long-time friend and former on-field foe Allan Border seemed the logical person to call.

Finding his mobile number in the list of newsroom contacts – then checking the clock to make sure it was a civilised hour – I rang the former Australian cricket captain, hoping like hell he wouldn’t answer.

He did. (Damn!)

I very clumsily asked for his reaction to the death of Malcolm Marshall.

There was a long silence. I thought we’d been cut off.

Then, in disbelief, he gasped “What? Malcolm died??”

My stomach lurched. This was clearly the first Allan Border had heard of it. And no wonder. As it transpired, he was in a pub on the other side of the world when I called, in a completely different time zone.

He could have easily yelled, hung up or declined to comment, but thankfully, Border showed his class went beyond the sporting arena and, composing himself, managed to share a couple of anecdotes with me.

Nevertheless, I was absolutely mortified.

It did ram home to me the importance of getting all your ducks in a row (and I don’t mean the cricket variety) when it comes to sharing news of this magnitude.

In 1993, several major Australian commercial radio stations incorrectly reported that the Queen Mother had died. I was working at one of them.

An Australian working for Sky News in London had seen a test run of the Queen Mother’s obituary and – wrongly assuming she had died – called a radio station in Brisbane.

Incorrect reports subsequently went to air both on TV and radio, before Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen Mum was still very much alive, and the stations were forced to issue retractions.

Confirming a person’s death for the purposes of radio news requires a strict verification process, not only for the sake of accuracy, but as a mark of respect for the family of the deceased.

And if the family requests holding off on any public announcement, this too must be respected.

We reporters love a scoop. But being a good human should always trump being a good journo. When it comes to reporting someone’s death, it’s always better to get it right than to get it first.

This is where the oft-used phrase ‘If in doubt, leave it out’ really comes into play.

Social media posts are certainly not a confirmation. Any journo worth their salt wouldn’t stake their reputation on the strength of something trending on X, Insta or Facebook.

People won’t remember who got the story first. They’ll only remember who got it wrong.

This article is brought to you by Radio Release.