Media Relations

General Information
Media Relations Image
The Washington County Coroner's Office is committed to maintaining a positive relationship with journalists in the local print and broadcast media. 

When a death occurs and there may be a public interest, our office will issue a media release. Media releases are distributed by email.

Our first responsibility is to protect the victim and their families. Therefore, it is our policy to use discretion when releasing details to the press, including names, addresses and locations of particular incidents, dates and times, and causes and manners of death until the family of the victim has been identified or until an investigation is closed.

In addition, media releases will not be distributed on all types of deaths.



Receiving Media Releases

Our preference is to distribute media releases to assignment desks and assignment editors, however we will add individuals to our distribution list at request. Please send an email to and include the following information:

  • Your name
  • Name of the media outlet you represent
  • Title
  • Current, valid email address

Please note that accounts which frequently 'bounce' undeliverable messages will be periodically removed from our mailing list. 


The iOS Share Menu
The Share menu in iOS.

Having Trouble?

Our Media Releases are delivered via a locked Adobe PDF file. The built-in preview in some mobile mail clients (particularly Mail on the iPhone) do not properly handle layered PDF files, resulting in preview that looks malformatted or completely blank. To remedy this, we recommend using Adobe Reader.

Download Adobe Reader from the App Store.

With the body of the email displayed, tap and hold on the document preview or the attachment icon to display the Share menu.

Tap Copy to Adobe Reader.

"Partially Downloaded" or "Improperly Decoded" Message?
On occasion, iOS devices using Apple's inbuilt Mail application may refuse to render PDF documents and other attachments, stating that it was unable to decode the attachment.

This is related to a bug with regard to how Mail interfaces with certain types of mail servers, but there's a quick fix:

  • With the message displayed, tap Trash and delete the message. 
  • Shake your iPhone, and then confirm you want to "Undo Trash."

The message will redisplay in the inbox, and the attachment should no longer be an issue.