We violated one of our own policies at the newspaper today.

In general, we do not cover funerals. Too often our presence is viewed as an intrusion on a family’s grief.

Notice that I did not say we never cover funerals.

Sometimes, news dictates that we do exactly that , such as in the case of a particularly notable figure.

Very often, the circumstances surrounding these funerals involves a notorious or criminal act.

The truth is, our presence is not wanted there, and we try to respect that. The family usually makes that pretty clear to us.

But that wasn’t the case on Tuesday when family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Michael Savage. He’s the 18-year-old student at Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades who was killed in a tragic accident on the campus last week.

Savage, a former football player at Academy Park High School, didn’t do anything wrong. His death was a tragic accident, at a school that has done a lot of good things for a lot of kids over the years.

I wanted to be sure that we gave both Savage, and the school, the coverage they deserved.

At the same time, I wanted to be very careful that we were not seen as intruding on the family’s grief. For that reason, we made contact with the family through the funeral home, to gauge their reaction to the possibility of us covering the funeral.

They indicated to us that they had no problem with us doing so, in fact they went so far as to thank us for the coverage we provided on the story over the weekend.

The last thing I want to do is heap more heartache on a family undergoing about the worst possible circumstances life can throw at us.

Our goal was to honor the memory of Michael Savage. I hope we accomplished that.