Ammanford News
South Wales Guardian opinion
6:50am Wednesday 22nd February 2012
THE family of young Cairan Davies, the Ammanford schoolboy who suffered serious burns in a freak accident at hishome, have hit out at media reports suggesting he had been playing with a naked flame.
Significantly, perhaps, they have praised the Guardian for its “accurate”
reporting of this unfortunate incident.
At a time when newspapers are facing the biggest cutbacks the industry has ever experienced, this episode neatly demonstrates the value of getting a reporter on the scene to speak to the people directly affected.
Reporters are thin on the ground these days and, inevitably, many stories are gleaned from the end of a telephone, rather than from having someone out in the field.
There are many occasions when papers rightly have to tread carefully – in the case of a sudden, tragic death, for instance. It can be a difficult call: what to one grieving person is an opportunity to pay a tribute or explain the exact circumstances of the tragedy can be press intrusion to another.
But as was proved in Tirydail last week, generally you cannot beat having someone actually on the spot to try and find out precisely what happened.
●THE awful story of Troy, the ginger tom targeted by a coward hiding behind his airgun in Gwaun cae Gurwen, will horrify animal lovers.
The Guardian has reported incidents of a similar nature around the same area in the past. This person simply must be caught.