Every weekday morning at 11:15, editors from the The Bee’s news and feature sections crowd around a large table in the managing editor’s office to talk about their stories and get an early read on how the next day’s paper is shaping up.
Distributed at the meeting is a one-page report listing the most popular stories on the paper’s Web site, sacbee.com.
Consistently high on the list, week in and week out, are stories about the Sacramento Kings. Often, they are the top stories.
In-season, out-of-season, it doesn’t matter. It’s as automatic as it gets.
In a one-horse town, that pony attracts lots of attention. I’ll leave to the sociologists – or is it the psychiatrists? – to figure out what it all means.
So when last Sunday’s sports section featured a lengthy centerpiece story and photo package on the Kings rookie and No. 1 draft pick Kevin Martin, it was sure to be well read.
Headlined the “The simple life: A day with Kings rookie Kevin Martin,” the story – through words and pictures – described a day in the life of the 21-year-old, 6-foot-7 guard as seen by reporter Sam Amick and photographer Jos Luis Villegas.
The story began with a detailed description of the newly rich Martin driving his $50,000 Cadillac CTS on Interstate 80 from the Sacramento airport in the fast lane.
“He sits way back in the leather seats,” the story recounted, “the local R&B radio station playing on his sound system. Eighty-five mph. No seatbelt. No fear.
“Adventure to pleasure to sheer luxury.”
We learned a little bit later that Martin likes to text-message on his cell phone, the story citing an example while the player was “weaving through traffic.”
On Monday, the negative responses were numerous and vociferous, both in phone calls and in e-mails.
And the thing is, The Bee could have avoided or at least minimized the outcry with more thoughtful and sophisticated editing. More on that later.
“We are in mourning for a 19-year-old who was just killed because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. I don’t understand how you can make it a fun thing not to wear one,” said the phone message from Robin Clary of Folsom.
Interviewed later, Clary said she is close to the family of Joshua Wade Anderson of El Dorado Hills. Anderson was killed two days before the Martin story ran, when his speeding SUV hit a median on El Dorado Hills Boulevard, rolled over several times and threw him from the vehicle.
“You’re making it seem cool to drive fast and without a seatbelt. You know who reads this story? Teenagers who look up to sports figures and think this is the way cool guys act,” said Clary, a 50-year-old mother of two teenagers who drive.
“I read it and I was appalled … I’m sure the intent wasn’t to glorify (Martin’s actions), but you need to realize we have kids dying in traffic accidents.”
Wrote Janet Barbieri of Placerville: “If Kevin Martin wants to risk his own life by driving like an idiot (excessive speed, weaving, no seatbelt), then fine. Good riddance.
“But I drive these Sacramento roads, too. And Martin’s behavior is endangering my family. Equally bad: Amick’s glorification of Martin’s behavior is disgusting and wrong. Poorly done, Sacramento Bee.”
Brad Kearns, a 39-year-old father of two small children who lives in Auburn, noted that “the same newspaper that printed this lengthy and vacuous glorification of the chillin’ life has printed perhaps dozens of stories in the past year of vehicle-related accident deaths, many related to unused seat belts or excessive speed … I just don’t think (Martin’s) life of ‘adventure to pleasure to sheer luxury’ should be glorified in the pages of The Bee.”
And there were more, many more, from a Sacramento High School math teacher to a retired parole agent, all taking the paper to task.
Tom Negrete, the paper’s assistant managing editor in charge of the sports and business sections, was the first editor to read the story. He received some of the complaints. In a long e-mail to some readers, he defended the Martin story.
“What you see is what you get. We’re in the business of telling our readers what we see, hear and learn, the good and the bad. We don’t try to make judgments on what’s good or bad, and therefore what we should try to hide about a person or what we should only play up in the story. We think we owe our readers the whole truth, and nothing less, of what we saw.”
He went on to say, “And yes, I did have some concerns about reporting all we saw – specifically driving 85 mph without a seatbelt – because I knew there would be young Kings fans reading this story. But after 20 years in journalism, I have learned to have a lot of faith in people who take the time to read a newspaper – whether they are young or old.”
Amick, the reporter, said he received about 30 e-mails and 10 phone messages about his story, most citing disappointment with the reference to Martin’s speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. He said he was surprised by the number of responses.
Amick said he sat in Martin’s car as it screamed down the interstate and that his intent in describing Martin’s driving behavior was to show “a 21-year-old, from a small town, with lots of money and idle time galore … going through the growing up process.”
“It was important to show that denial … that certain amount of invincibility that is prevalent among pro athletes.
“I respect everyone who was repulsed by the story, whose loved ones have been lost to car wrecks … but I was looking for some sort of balance. I had to get out of the way and let the readers decide.”
But I think Negrete and Amick’s explanations only go so far and miss the mark. My main gripe is with the editing of the story and the lack of a more tough-minded approach.
For starters, as several readers have pointed out, the story should have included a reference to Bobby Hurley. Like Martin, he was in 1993 the Kings No. 1 draft choice.
Barely two months into his rookie season, Hurley almost lost his life in a horrific crash as he left Arco Arena after a December night game. Although he wasn’t at fault, he was not wearing a seatbelt and was thrown from his vehicle into a ditch, nearly drowning before he was saved by a teammate who came upon the accident.
That is relevant information in the context of Martin’s similar youthfulness, stage in his career and apparent obliviousness to similar danger. It also would have provided an historical context for readers and Kings fans too young to remember Hurley’s accident.
And I also think it would have been appropriate to place Martin’s driving in the broader context of the Sacramento community’s recent tragic track record of young people – Martin’s generation – dying in wrecks because they weren’t wearing seatbelts.
As the story points out, Martin is still getting to know the region. A reference to his ignorance about the region’s run of fatal traffic accidents involving young people would have shown he still has much to learn.
Done artfully, such editing would have provided more depth and balance to the story, more insight into Martin and made it an overall better read.
A good place to start is with a little less gee-whiz and little more incredulity.
