When a 25 year-old Boston Latin School graduate was victimized in a brutal murder in Brooklyn, the local press staked out the story by searching out the young woman's family. Crews showed up at the victim's family home on Mission Hill, seeking comment and looking to make photos of the grieving mother and sister.

The two women made themselves available for several days, and then posted a note on their front door, asking the inquirers to please not ring their doorbell, and to allow them some privacy in the sanctity of their home..

So what do our reporters do? They stake out camera angles for daily "live stand-ups" from the sidewalk in front of the home, and generally create a constant public nuisance. The grieving family essentially became prisoners in their own homes.

A most egregious moment came on Sunday night, on the 11 o'clock news, when one of WCVB's "investigative team" performed his 10-second "stand-up" live, causing the family's home and several neighboring houses to be bathed in the bright klieg lights of the TV crew. There was no need to be there, there was nothing newsworthy that night at the family's home, and the live shot was used only to introduce a pre-recorded video of an earlier police press conference in New York..

Simply put, the gruesome murder was awful, but the family continued to be victimized daily by the relentless efforts of the news hounds. Now we understand what the paparazzi who stalk celebrities must be like. What news judgment leads to surrounding the victim's home? If Channel 5 needs a stand-up location, why not go down to Avenue Louis Pasteur and stand outside of Boston Latin School? Or better yet, why not just stay in studio and give viewers a summary of the new developments, and not inflict another torturous day and evening on the victims?

-Ed Forry

Crossing a line in the daily newspaper wars

As if to prove that nothing exceeds like excess in the current media business, the pathetic one-upmanship between Boston's two daily newspapers reached a new low point this week, as the two battle over coverage of two competing books focusing on Whitey Bulger. The Herald spent the better part of the month giving over its front page to promote a book by its columnist Howard Carr, a volume largely ignored by the rival Globe. This week, the Globe turned its pages over to promoting a book by reputed Whitey henchman Kevin Weeks. One of the Globe's crime beat reporters, Shelley Murphy, actually brought the recently-released convict into the newsroom on Morrissey Blvd., and hosted him for a heavily-promoted, amiable hour-long "chat" online at the Globe's website, boston.com.

It is hard to imagine what goes through the mind of Globe's editors when they assign such coverage in the newspaper; harder still to understand what Murphy was thinking by escorting this convicted hoodlum into the building. Globe columnist Brian McGrory pointed out that Weeks has made a practice of threatening the Globe's estimable reporter Kevin Cullen, and yet Murphy thought nothing of bringing this guy into the building where Cullen was working. Huh? Bottom line: Both newspapers are simply trying to sell some papers and books, and they put their own reputations on the line when they stoop to promote these men of such low repute.

- E.F.