Facebook and Disaster

Image via Wikipedia

7Days, with its superior sense of news, leads with the tragic story of Ana Negra Barrabeig, the Dubai based woman who lost her life, returning from her honeymoon, on AF447. Tragically, her new husband took another flight back to Dubai as he had to return to work. Ana had planned to spend a few days with relatives in Spain on her way back.

The story is heartbreaking enough, but there's a macabre little postscript for those of us that like to follow the ins and outs of social media and its growing role in our lives.

Ana's Facebook page is still up, you see. And so journalists researching the story have been able to get details about her employer, her friends (I can only assume friends are getting Facebook and other requests from media) and also have been able to trawl through her photographs and other personal information posted up on the site.

I'd link to her page, but it feels like such a scandalous invasion. Maybe I'm being funny about it.

I had never, strangely, thought about this possibility. I have worked with media on the trail of a 'big' story on many occasions and it's always an interesting experience. The story is everything and woe betide anyone who gets in the way of it. Media will try literally anything to get that 'edge' that 'angle' - including faking sympathy, concern and trying every back door to get through to the subject.

But the media looking into AF447 had a new first port of call. They just had to Google the names of the passengers on the list and start digging into their online background. There it all is - pals, fears, hopes, photographs. Everything you'd want to get started on that story about the people who were lost.

Here's a thought, peeps. Take a look at your online self. What would you be leaving behind if, God Forbid, you were taken suddenly?