Tweeting from a funeral?

Tweeting from a funeral? Is it OK? Or is it bad taste?

When I worked as a reporter, I covered a number of funerals for young people.

One was for a 7-year-old who had his head cut off with a box cutter after a home invasion.

Another was for a family of two young sisters and their grandmother who all died in a fire while the mother/daughter was in prison on drug charges. The mother recieved special dispensation from Gov. Rowland to attend the funeral.

Both were high profile stories that appeared on the front page of the newspaper. Both were heartbreaking.

And the funerals were heartbreaking. I will never forget them. I remember staying in the back, watching scenes play themselves out, and taking notes as discreetly as possible with my pen and my notebook.

Would punching out my notes on my mobile phone in 140-character sentences and sending them out the public live on my Twitter feed during the service be essentially the same thing in this day and age?

I don’t know.

I remember taking the time after both of these funerals to be very thoughful and respectful with the words and information I delivered to the public in my story.

Maybe that’s my problem: Can you be thoughtful and meaningful on Twitter?

Maybe you can. But such immediacy leaves lots of room for thoughtlessness, too.

Or maybe because of those experiences, I’m just too sensitive when it comes to this subject.

I think twittering for a news organization during the funeral service of a private citizen is in poor taste. Not necessarily unethical, but it feels disrespectful. Aren’t the deceased and their grieving family entitled to the full attention of everyone attending funeral services, including the press?

Even the PGA forces people to turn off their cell phones when they attend golf tournaments. If you are constantly connected and communicating, you are only giving partial attention to the event at hand.

Has the public’s appetite for information become so insatiable that we’ve come to require play-by-play commentary during funeral services? Why can’t we wait until it’s over?