Conducting media interviews

Information for journalists and producers

Please note the following information to ensure time effective and successful interviews with donor-conceived people:

As the person you are interviewing is likely to be talking about a very personal experience and may feel associated trauma, please do all that you can to ensure a feeling of safety and comfort, including the provision of water and the opportunity to review notes.

Common mistakes people make include confusing IVF with donor conception. While many of these technologies come under the umbrella term of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and many have been created using IVF technologies also, it is not correct to say all donor-conceived people have been conceived using IVF, and only a small percentage of IVF-conceived people are donor-conceived.

It is incumbent upon journalists to ascertain whether donor-conceived people (DCP) were conceived via sperm, egg or embryo donation. For DCP over the age of 30, they are mostly the product of anonymous sperm donation, but there are exceptions to this. Please do not make assumptions.

Correct terms to use in your questions and any print articles are very important to our community. Generally, we recommend use of the following terms, however, we also ask that you confirm with each individual before an interview their preferred terms as it is an individual choice:

• Donor-conceived person or DCP (not sperm donor baby or donor child)
• Donor-conceived siblings, siblings, or many DCP will simply refer to their half-siblings as “brother” or sister”
• Social family (the family they grew up with),brother/sister; Dad, Mum (the non-biological parent they were raised with, who they still consider their parent)
• Donor, biological parent, or many simply refer to them by their name- please ASK. Please do not refer to the biological parent/donor as ‘Dad/Mum’ or any form of Dad/Mum – eg ‘Donor-Dad’ or ‘Biological-Mum’.
• Recipient parents – people who accept a gamete donation.

Donor-conceived people hear the same terms or phrases many times over so please be mindful of avoiding terms which can feel diminishing or dismissive. It is appropriate to ask if there are any such terms they wish to avoid or correct.

Common terms or phrases that many in the donor-conceived community find offensive include:

• Shortening ‘donor-conceived siblings’ to ‘diblings’
• Being told we are more wanted, loved or should be glad to have been born
• Being told that not all donor-conceived people feel that way
• Saying that the donor who assisted our parents is ‘our’ donor (they donated to our parents, not to us)
• Saying that the donor, who is our biological father or mother, is ‘just’ a donor or comparing them to an organ donor

Please be careful and respectful of our original parent’s feelings. Referring to our Dad as ‘non-biological father’ or biological parent as ‘Dad’ is really tough for our parents to read, is not how we feel and is to be discouraged.

Certain questions can be offensive and disrespectful to ask donor-conceived people. Please think carefully before asking these questions, and if you must ask them, please consider speaking with our Donor Conceived UK representative first to ascertain which of our members would be best able to respond without becoming overly traumatised:

• Asking how our parents feel about us looking for our biological parent, or how our biological parent feels about being found, in a way that elevates their rights and feelings over ours
• Would you rather you had never been born?
• How is this different to a one-night stand?
• I don’t know my family, how is that any different?
• But the donor was anonymous-how would they feel about all these people if they started knocking on their door?

If possible, please provide an outline or list of questions prior to the interview, and whether TV interviews will be live or pre-recorded.

Please do everything possible to ensure accuracy of tone and content, including but not limited to asking follow up questions and providing a draft for fact-checking. Often some small phrasing can be used in a heading or in the article that that wasn’t meant to offend, but can cause offence to the donor-conceived community. For this reason, Donor Conceived UK request to see draft copies of text before publication to minimise the effects of trauma on our members, and wider community. We will only check the use of terminology and not change any of the tone or views of the article.

We understand this is not normal practice, however in the past, we have had journalists that are intent on publishing an article that is positive towards our cause that, when published, is full of terminology our community finds offensive and it ends up being a negative experience for interviewees and the community as a whole.

Please advise of the release date, and of the title and location/page of print articles, online articles, radio broadcasts or TV broadcasts.