I first saw the news on Twitter that there had been a shark attack at Muriwai. Then came the news there had been a death. Simple, factual, chilling.

I tweeted:

Sadly, in response to what I’m seeing on twitter – the media sharks smell blood. Shocking news but distasteful haste for a scoop.

Inane exaggerations like “We’re told shark was massive, more than 2 metres” (2 meters doesn’t sound big).

“Do you have photos of the scene?”
“Are you at Muriwai? We want to hear from you!”
“Great work from @namedeleted live from Muriwai” as if it was sport.

I find the clamour to get on scene and get pictures and eyewitness reports to be distasteful, especially in awful circumstances like this.

I was going to list offending tweets along with names and organisastions but have decided to not repeat the unseemly spectacle.

UPDATE: I just saw a tweet that referred to a

Brilliant headline!!!

I was going to do something about that but they must have had second thoughts and deleted the tweet.