In the words of Bill O'Brien, a senior sergeant and the police media liaison at the time of the Aramoana tragedy, "the media is a very interesting animal".
Imagine there is a dangerous person with a gun on the rampage in a community and everybody is trying to cope.
The police are gathering their officers and those with specialist training for armed situations, there may already be seriously injured people, and family and friends, held back by police cordons or in other parts of the city or New Zealand, are distraught and desperate to be with their loved ones.
In the midst of all this tension and activity is the media, some of whom are pushing for more and more information, and this intrusion may even be putting lives at risk.
And for what?
A scoop.
A journalistic coup where they can share the story with the rest of the world before others.
But where is the line between being intrusive and insensitive and simply providing stories to keep the public up to date, something we consider our right?
The intensity of the media is huge and all-consuming, and it has become more so with developing technologies.
Already, so hungry can the media beast be that some representatives will turn up at the families of victims' houses, will telephone people who are hiding in their homes from a killer who may appear at any moment, and will ask friends and family of the dead victims how they are feeling about the loss.
Well, how do you think they would feel?
But the media is a hungry beast that must be fed.
The question though, and one posed by Mr O'Brien, is how much?
To deprive the media of food could result in false information being spread and this could have detrimental effects on court proceedings later.
There is also protocol to be followed.
Sometimes police cannot confirm information the media might know to be true.
For example, the media may ask whether a person is dead, but the police cannot confirm this until a doctor has examined the victim.
The question then still needs to be asked: What information should the media have access to and what avenues of finding out that information should be restricted or even forbidden?
Mr O'Brien's visit was funded by the New Zealand Book Council Writers in Schools Programme.
He is the author of Aramoana: Twenty-Two Hours of Terror.
