Death and social media

Despite all the confirmations, some of the reporters regarded the news as too insensitive because it was “too early to report it”.  There was an argument that, “family members might not be aware of the incident,” and so the newspaper should be decent and wait for relatives to be informed or for an official announcement to be made, before they could break the “news”.  Most of the journalists who held this view argued that it was only human to withhold the announcement, adding that this discretion was also in line with Setswana/African cultural norms where close relatives are informed of deaths before the wider public.

Others, however, opined that Motswaledi was not an ordinary human being and his death could not be held like that of an ordinary mortal. Notwithstanding the debate on whether public figures have a right to private, this section of the newsroom felt that if authoritative confirmation had been secured, then social media constituents could be informed.