David Bain, and the right to privacy

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When a newspaper’s tagline is News Worth Knowing, you have to assume they’re talking about important, consequential information, that is in the public interest.

But judging by an article in today’s New Zealand Herald that assumption would be wrong.

I was stunned by this lead story - 30 years to the day after the murder of the Bain family, one of the most high-profile and controversial murder cases in New Zealand history - which revealed the new name, life, and location of the only surviving family member, David Bain.

To which I have one simple question:

Why?

The (short) background story goes like this.

In 1995, David Bain was convicted of murdering five of his family members a year earlier. He always professed his innocence, and in 2007 his conviction was quashed after an appeal to the Privy Council in London. At a subsequent retrial in 2009, Bain was acquitted on all charges.

Which should be the end of it.

But such is the enduring interest in this particular murder case, David Bain has never been left alone.

And now in 2024, after a visit by the New Zealand Herald to try to speak to Bain, we know the following:

  • David Bain is now known by the name Liam Davies;

  • He had previously changed his name to William Cullen Davies in 2017, but had to change it a second time when his new identity was made public;

  • He lives in Cambridge, Waikato;

  • He lives in a new home with four bedrooms;

  • There is a dog in the yard;

  • The curtains were drawn;

  • The garage door was open;

  • There was laundry drying in the sun;

  • There was a child’s plastic bike…

I wish I was kidding, but this is actually the “information” published about a man whose life has already been turned upside down multiple times, who has since been acquitted in a court of law of the crimes he was accused, and who clearly values his privacy to the point of changing his name.

Interestingly, three days before this article, RNZ published a similar 30th anniversary piece in which it said:

“Attempts to reach David Bain, who now goes by the name William Davies, were unsuccessful. Friends of his spoken to by RNZ... said the 52-year-old was keen to leave the chapter behind him. He now reportedly lives in the Waikato town of Cambridge.”
— RNZ, 17 June 2024

I’d argue that was bad enough - revealing his (old) new name - but the Herald took it a step further in revealing his current new name… and then making the point that he’d been forced into that second name change because he’d been outed the first time around!

Imagine having the irresponsible audacity to write that, in the same breath as revealing his latest identity - with no thought for the effect it might have on the people involved. It’s actually breathTAKING.

Seems I wasn’t the only one taken aback by all of this:

I once complained about the media reports on the sale of my family home. I said it wasn’t newsworthy (I had already announced two months earlier that I would be selling my house) and that revealing as much information as they did in their articles was tantamount to doxxing.

In response, the editor of the New Zealand Herald told me: “the fact that Stuff and the NZ Herald have published articles on your house sale should be evidence to you that this matter is considered newsworthy” (emphasis added)

So that was that. News is newsworthy because the media says so.

Journalists often claim to ask the big and important questions, but I would suggest they need to ask themselves some serious questions too.

Would they want information about them, their family, their children, their house, their laundry, or their dog published for all to read?

And, to go back to my original question, for what reason? What was the value in this story?

Was it even journalism?

No, it wasn’t.

And it’s a sad indictment that it was even considered “news worth knowing”.