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The Media needs to move on and let the parents grieve and the law take its course. However, I doubt that will happen, knowin the SD media.

A few years ago, when I was a small-city radio reporter, there was a case involving a seven year old boy who was molested and murdered. (A suspect was identified and booked not very long after the boy's body was found; the case had yet to go to trial when I left that radio station but I was told the suspect was convicted later.) I remember the boy's mother, uncle (as it happened, he was also the family's minister) and aunt being very cooperative with me, but then I wasn't the sort who went in for what they once called keyhole journalism. That caused me a little grief with my bosses, especially when I told them that when last I looked I'd been hired by their radio station and not the Weekly World News, and that if and when the family wished to speak to us then we had a proper place to be with them and, otherwise, we should leave them the hell alone. You may rest assured that, too, went into my dossier in red ink.

Some years earlier, in newspaper days, a story broke about a severe wind shear caving in a glass-and-steel elementary school cafeteria wall, killing several children; most regional reporters were practically camping out at those families' doorsteps, whereas I snuck an editorial into my paper to the effect that unless they invite us, we should butt the hell out. I say snuck because our editors approved the editorial until they got hammered by other news organisations, then they tried playing a CYA game at my expense, even though I was trying to stand for something called integrity. Now you know why I've had a journalism career best described as checkered. There are certain things I will simply not do.

A prayer for the Van Dam family.