This meant doing more than surrounding the crash site. It meant walking through it and, in one staggering incident that demonstrated how far television journalism has come since the 1950s, picking through the suitcase of a dead passenger while talking to camera.
At some point the moral compass of Sky News journalist Colin Brazier cut in and he confided to his audience that "We really shouldn't be doing this, I suppose".
The reaction was swift and angry. As a fellow journalist put it, "We shouldn't really be doing this? No shit, Sherlock! Those items are essentially sacred things now for the relatives."
Talk of relatives brings things into perspective. Included in the audience watching television news about MH17 are people whose grief is hard to imagine. Not only are they coming to terms with the fact that members of their family have died in the most grotesque way possible, they are having to share that in the most public way possible.
It has to be said that the majority of the journalists covering the story have shown a deep awareness of their responsibility to present the news in a respectful and dignified way.
But the Sky journalist has pushed the boat out - as many of his predecessors have done over the years as they have moved the boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable. At least for some journalists, the organisations they work for and the audiences they serve, a new line has been drawn in the sand. This should come as no surprise. In the age of reality television, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, very little can be kept private. Indeed, journalists don't have to invade people's privacy because there are plenty of other people doing it for them.
"Citizen journalists" are everywhere. In many cases people record themselves doing the most private of acts and transmit to the world. There is a sense that nothing can or should be private. The world is becoming totally transparent. And for the most part this trend seems to be accepted. Working in this environment, it is no wonder that journalists feel, at least on occasion, that anything goes.
Until there are events like MH17. Then the boundaries of what should or should not be private become visible again. Because anyone who can afford a plane ticket could have been on that plane. It was full of people going about their everyday lives. They did not ask for their plane to be blown to bits and have their bodies scattered across the fields of the Ukraine along with their possessions.
Of course, it would not be sensible to suggest that the story should not have been told. This is one of the most important stories of the century so far. The people who died deserve to have the circumstances of their death told to the world because they are an outrage.
Yet, there is no doubt that they would want that story told in a way that accords them respect and dignity. That is what the Sky journalist could not bring himself to do.
In the face of worldwide condemnation, he has since apologised and explained that he was overcome with emotion and, without thinking, "crossed the line".
At least there is still a line. But perhaps the more important matter is what audiences think about the coverage of MH17.
Do they believe it is their right to play the voyeur as someone rummages through the suitcase of a dead passenger? Or do they say that there are times when the right to privacy, the right to not be in the news should triumph over the right to know?
This is a question that confronts everyone in the age of transparency. It is a question that needs to be resolved because the next person subjected to the relentless stare of a camera at a time of utter defencelessness could be you.
