The differing approaches to major stories taken by RTE and the next largest media organisation in the state, Independent Newspapers, are highlighted in their respective coverage of yesterday’s tragedy, in which a couple in their eighties and their 40-year-old son were found dead in their farmhouse in county Wicklow.RTE seems to expect its audience to read between the lines to grasp what actually happened: “Two rifles were recovered from the scene and gardaí say they are not looking for anyone at present in connection with the deaths.”But the Irish Independent leaves the reader in no doubt about what occurred: the headline banner reads “Mystery as son kills parents and himself.”In theory, the journalistic approach taken by RTE deserves approbation, as it reports the facts while going some way to respect the privacy and grief of the surviving members of the Sleator family. However, the media consumer, detached from the immediate context, will always want (and usually get) the unexpurgated, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination details. People might tut-tut the Indo’s approach, but they are also equally likely to read the paper’s articles, searching for the nuggets the more high-minded broadcaster has decided to shield us from.PS: Interesting, the Irish Times does not explicitly identify the son as responsible for the shooting. Perhaps it is assumed that the Times’s ABC1 readership does not need the dots joined for them.