Sarah Tucker: The story we are too quick to tell

Sarah Tucker

A man has died after entering a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, and before this becomes a story about stupidity, blame or the behaviour of wild animals, it is worth remembering that somebody’s family is living through something the rest of us are merely reading.

The fatal attack happened on 10 October near Doncaster, and police said there was no wider risk to the public, while the park said it was working with the authorities to establish what happened.

That leaves important questions unanswered, although an unanswered question has a remarkably short life online, where someone will usually supply a confident explanation before the people investigating have finished introducing themselves.

The temptation is to ask why the man entered the enclosure, then fill the gap with a theory that makes his behaviour comprehensible to us, preferably one which also allows us to feel wiser.

But understanding an unfamiliar person’s final actions requires evidence, and watching footage does not provide access to his intentions, circumstances or state of mind, whatever qualifications the comments section has recently awarded itself.

The more useful question is what we need to establish, and what could eventually be learned that might reduce the likelihood of another death.

That changes the assignment, because finding a satisfying explanation and finding a preventable sequence are different jobs, even when the first produces a considerably more clickable headline.

Reuters led with the death and the police account, while The Sun placed frightened witnesses and graphic descriptions prominently in its coverage, offering readers different routes into the same tragedy.

Eyewitness accounts can be essential, but deciding which details to foreground is an editorial choice, and the fact that something happened does not automatically establish that describing it vividly helps anybody understand it.

There is a distinction between informing the public and ensuring that the public cannot look away, although the word engagement has proved professionally useful in avoiding that conversation.

The police asked people not to circulate distressing footage, an appeal which invites a simple reversal of perspective: imagine receiving the worst news of your life while strangers distribute the images. www.theguardian.com

A recording may have value for investigators without having value as public entertainment, and the existence of a share button is a technical facility rather than an ethical argument.

The park has said the tiger, Altai, will not be euthanised, allowing the animal’s behaviour to be considered without treating it as a defendant who has failed to respect the terms of admission.

That does not answer questions about safety or diminish the death, but it removes one distraction from examining how a person came to be in a place where the consequences could be fatal.

An investigation can examine access, safeguards and emergency responses without beginning from the assumption that somebody was negligent, or that a particular barrier failed, or that the people responding could have changed the outcome.

Crucially, reviewing protective arrangements need not wait for a complete explanation of motive, because a system can be examined for how it handles foreseeable departures from ordinary behaviour.

Entrepreneurs should recognise that question, although this tragedy must not become a jaunty business parable, with somebody’s death repackaged as five leadership lessons and a photograph of the author looking thoughtful.

The relevant discipline is to examine assumptions before they become invisible, including the assumption that users will read instructions, interpret them correctly and behave exactly as the designer intended.

A notice can communicate a rule without ensuring compliance, just as a customer can misunderstand a process which seemed perfectly obvious to the six people who spent months constructing it.

The practical exercise is to ask what happens when the expected action does not occur, then examine whether the arrangement still protects people, rather than merely proving that they were told what to do.

For a newsroom, the equivalent exercise is to remove the most disturbing details and ask whether the reader loses essential understanding or whether the article merely loses some of its power to attract attention.

For readers, it means separating what has been established from what sounds plausible, and declining the invitation to turn a stranger into a diagnosis, a warning or an object of ridicule.

We can demand an investigation without demanding an immediate villain and ask difficult questions without pretending the answers have already arrived, which would make public discussion less exhilarating but considerably more useful.

The staff and witnesses may need support long after the headline has moved on, while the family deserves consideration that does not depend on whether the story is still attracting readers.

The strongest change of perspective is therefore to ask what our attention is doing, whether it serves understanding, prevention and those affected, or simply feeds our appetite for an explanation.

A responsible account should leave us better informed and less inclined to mistake the speed of our judgment for the quality of our thinking.