Training | 2009.11.22
How to break bad news | Jon Canter
If you have to tell people that a friend has died, it\'s best to get in touch with your inner Huw Edwards
This week, I heard about Bruno. Have you heard about Bruno? Have you heard about Sarah? Have you heard about Jonny/Geoffrey/John? I\'ve reached the age and the stage where all have-you-heards are followed by bad news. In fact, they\'re followed by the worst: Bruno and Sarah and Jonny and Geoffrey and John are dead.
At that moment, bizarre and illogical as it is, I feel upset that the dead person hasn\'t called me themselves. It seems mean that they\'ve left it to someone else. "Have you heard about me?" Bruno would say, to which I\'d reply, shocked: "No! When? What happened?" " Pulmonary embolus ," he\'d reply, "this morning. As I was having a cup of coffee." At which point – given there\'s not much use in asking how he is – I\'d at least have the chance to say: "OK, right, then. Goodbye."
Invariably, I ask the bereaved person if there\'s anything I can do; and invariably they ask me to make a few calls on their behalf, sparing them the awful repetition that\'s the bane of the bearer of worst tidings. This is when my BBC training kicks in.
My BBC training, I should explain, is that of a viewer. Decades of watching newsreaders, from Robert Dougall to Huw Edwards , have taught me that these people are in their jobs precisely because they\'re so skilled at telling us who\'s just died. This isn\'t the place to debate whether good news is no news, though the Good News Bible does seem a misnomer, given that Jesus died for our sins many, many bulletins ago. The fact is, death – currently, of British soldiers in Afghanistan – is the top news story of the day, whatever the day is. Like all newsreaders, Huw, with his magnificently melancholic grave-digger\'s mouth, is on the Grim Reaper\'s payroll.
Give it to them straight. That\'s what I\'ve learned from the Beeb. Come out with it. Deliver your headline. If you\'re calling someone to tell them your mutual friend Bruno\'s dead, don\'t delay. Niceties beget niceties. You ask how they are, they ask how you are; suddenly, they\'re telling you how well their daughter did in her GCSEs, which you\'re obliged to interrupt with the news of Bruno\'s death, as if their daughter\'s exam results aren\'t important, which of course they\'re not.
Instinctively, before you break your bad news, you want to get them in the mood. (Who can blame you? This is the function performed by the self-important graphics and tension-inducing beeps that precede the Bad News At 10.) Don\'t do it. Don\'t conjure the mood by saying, in a sonorous voice, that you\'re calling them to tell them something awful. This is meant to give them time to sit down and prepare themselves. It\'s your way of being kind to be cruel.
But it is, in fact, doubly cruel. It gives them time to imagine what your something awful\'s going to be. Inevitably, they imagine you\'re about to tell them their husband/wife/partner/child has died in an accident. So, when you tell them about Bruno, it comes as a kind of perverse relief. Phew. It\'s only Bruno that\'s died. Their friend, not their loved one. Surely, Bruno deserves better than to have his demise relegated to not-so-bad news.
State the headline, then amplify it: time and cause of death, state of nearest and dearest, funeral arrangements and so on. You\'ll then sense that your bulletin is coming to an end. This is when – to change channels – you\'ll find you\'re suddenly in touch with your inner Sir Trevor McDonald. You\'ll feel obliged to provide your audience with an "and finally" moment. Death is not the end. It can\'t be. The end is something cheery. This, after all, is British news we\'re talking about.
So you deliver your "and finally": it was quick, he didn\'t suffer much, at least he lived long enough to go to his daughter\'s wedding, he had a long innings. (As long as you think in terms of the limited-overs game, not a Test match.)
These homilies aren\'t news, though. They\'re speculation. How do you know he didn\'t suffer much? Did he tell you? No. Let bad news be bad news. There\'ll be time, later, when the news has sunk in, for a comforting little joke about The Weather.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]/news-of-death-bbc-huw-edwards
