Whenever our community experiences a tragedy, we are faced with extraordinarily difficult ethical decisions.

As journalists, our responsibility is to inform the public about events that shape our community, even when those events involve profound loss.

We do this work because an informed public is essential to a functioning community, and residents rely on local news to understand the events that impact their lives and the lives of their neighbors. Without accurate reporting, rumor and speculation fill the void, often causing more harm than the truth.

Tragedies, by their nature, meet the standard of newsworthiness. They are widely discussed, they affect the community and they become part of the historical record of a place and its people. For that reason, stories of grief and loss have long been a part of community journalism.

At the same time, they are among the most sensitive stories we cover, involving victims, first responders and people experiencing profound grief — a reality that demands careful ethical judgment in how those stories are reported. When we report on tragedy, our priorities sharpen, and the imperative to minimize harm becomes the lens through which editorial choices are made.

To meet that obligation, we strive to show compassion for those affected by news coverage and to approach our reporting with sensitivity. We are deliberate in how we gather and present information, recognizing that our work can cause harm or discomfort. We rarely, if ever, ask those who are grieving to speak with us, and we avoid publishing photographs of community members in moments of grief.

These decisions reflect a broader principle: private individuals, unlike public officials, have a greater right to control how information about them is shared. For many people affected by tragedy, this may be their first time in the public spotlight — and sometimes, it will be the only time.

We put those principles into practice this week. We made the decision to wait before publishing photographs of Sunday’s house fire and chose not to share images of the mourning Amish community. While other outlets published such images, our familiarity with Amish customs informed a different approach.

Our decision to cover the funeral itself was rooted in our responsibility to document events that affect the community, to provide a sense of public acknowledgment and closure, and to create an accurate record. At the same time, we chose not to pander to lurid curiosity or engage in coverage that would be unnecessarily intrusive.

Whether we are reporting on a house fire, a fatal crash or a homicide, this work requires more than simply relaying facts. It requires empathy, restraint and a commitment to balancing the public’s need for information with the potential harm that reporting can cause.