A couple of months ago, the AJC wrote a compelling story about Greg Ock, a Carroll County man who had a celebratory homecoming after a harrowing ordeal overseas. It was one of those good news stories made even more special because it turned out so much better than it could have.
Ock had been kidnapped 11 days before in Nigeria, where he was working as a mechanical engineer. His captors shot his driver and a guard and held Ock for seven days, demanding more than $300,000 in ransom before releasing him.
We were especially pleased to be able to cover Greg Ock’s homecoming because it followed some mended relations with the Ock family.
A little background: When Ock was kidnapped, news first broke on the international wire services. Ock’s brother, Michael Ock, emailed a wire story to the AJC to make sure we knew, and one of our reporters began working on a story.
The reporter reached out to Michael Ock, who did not want to go into details because authorities had told him to limit statements to the media. The reporter also tried to connect with other family members, including Stacey Ock, Greg Ock’s adult daughter. Unable to reach Stacey directly, the reporter used a few comments from Stacey’s Facebook page, including, “Pray as hard as you can for my daddy.”
When the story came out, Stacey was alarmed to see material from her Facebook page. She posted again to Facebook, a link to the story and “I cannot believe the AJC.” What followed, from Stacey’s Facebook friends, was pretty strong criticism of the AJC. Some speculated that we had somehow hacked her page. Others were convinced a friend had leaked information to us. Our reporter got emails demanding an apology, and readers reached out to me to complain.
We were concerned by the allegation that we had hacked or taken private information from a friend. We are sensitive to privacy concerns and would not use improper means to access a Facebook page.
We tried again to reach Stacey, but by that time she was so angry she was not about to call us back.
“I thought I had my account set so no one could see it unless they were my friends,” she later explained to me. Of material on her page, she said, “I didn’t think it ought to be in the paper.”
I reached out to the family and explained that we had not intended to invade anyone’s privacy or be insensitive at such a difficult time. When we accessed the page, it was entirely public and had more than 500 followers.
By then, Stacey had already realized that her Facebook settings were public and changed them. She told me later that she got over her anger and even came to the view that her comments in the paper probably led more people to pray for her father.
The use of Facebook for reporting is not unique to the AJC. Various journalism training organizations teach classes about it, and Facebook even runs a page with more than 150,000 followers called Facebook + Journalists.
While the use of Facebook for reporting may be common, it was clear to me that we had hit a nerve with the public. Once the kidnapping was over, the AJC held a newsroom training session to discuss what readers and sources might expect when we use Facebook for reporting. We talked about the necessity of making sure Facebook material is authentic. We learned that even our reporters don’t understand all the privacy settings on their own Facebook accounts, so it’s a lot to expect that a private citizen in a family crisis would.
We agreed that we shouldn’t assume a person who comments on a public Facebook page knows their words might be viewed by a newspaper and that we should be cautious in the use of such material.
I have told Stacey how much I appreciated her letting us use this example as a training discussion and in this column. She also urged me to convey to reporters that they should proceed cautiously when someone is being held hostage, because material on ajc.com could be accessed worldwide.
She said during the kidnapping, the family had no idea whether kidnappers would follow the coverage here or try to figure out family members’ names from the news, as authorities suggested they might. “How are we supposed to understand what is going through any kidnapper’s brain?”
Thankfully, that’s not a worry they have to concern themselves with now. Stacey said she’s enjoying having her dad home and very glad he’s not working overseas anymore.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wants to explain openly to readers what we do and why. Public editor Shawn McIntosh writes a column every other week to provide insight into newsroom operations, the newspaper’s role in the community and the industry. Write McIntosh at insideajc@ajc.com or join the conversation on editor Kevin Riley’s Facebook page,
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