³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

One of the worst jobs for any reporter has got to be when they are asked to try to make contact with the relatives of someone who's just died. They may be a victim of an accident, a crime, killed by a terrorist attack or died in military service. Whatever the reason, that knock on the door is a particularly hard thing to do.

The reaction is normally predictable. Most people, understandably, don’t want to talk. But, for some relatives, the chance to share their thoughts about a lost loved one can seem something of a release.

And in recent weeks on Five Live we've found people actually coming to us. This morning we featured the story of a family from Nottingham whose son was murdered outside their home. They wanted to speak publicly because they were unhappy about various aspects of the way they've been treated since their son's death. (You can listen to the interview here.)

Also this week we had exclusive audio with Jane Bowden, the fiancée of Peter Woodhams who was also killed outside his home. She'd come into contact with us during our investigations into the collapse of the Christmas club Farepak. Given the chance, she wanted to tell people how unhappy she'd been with the original police investigation into an earlier attack on Peter.

Instances like these don’t mean reporters will never have to knock on doors again. But it does show again how quickly the relationship between us and our audience is changing - and, maybe, how some people see parts of the media that they used to keep at an arm's length as a potentially useful ally in getting their message across.