By any measure — and last week’s big story was one that was told in inches — putting together the Feb. 23,
25 and 26 editions was a challenge for The Courier-Journal’s news staff.
At the heart of it all: A grand jury decision about a controversial police shooting that was certain to draw criticism, no matter what it said.
Just under the surface: A long-simmering sense that some folks can’t and don’t get a fair shake from the police department and other power structures.
Our role: To tell this complex and contradictory story as accurately, precisely, fairly and contextually as possible.
I think The Courier-Journal did all that in its coverage of the James Taylor shooting, what led up to it, what the grand jury decided and how the community has responded.
Naturally, we have heard from some readers who disagree. And while the amount of criticism hasn’t been overwhelming, it has been passionate and deserves to be aired.
The majority of the remarks I’ve heard have dealt with the editors’ decision to print a front-page photograph that showed the hands of Taylor, then deceased, holding a box-cutter knife with a three-inch blade in his right hand with handcuffs that appeared to be several inches above his wrists.
A sampling of that reader response:
”It was gruesome and awful. I share the newspaper with my children and I don’t want them to see that.”
”This photo inflames violence in the community. There’s no way that 11 times he was shot and wound up still holding a box-cutter in his hand. . . . The Courier-Journal chose to accept and run a photo of a dead man. That’s not right. . . .”
”It is apparent that you wanted to sell newspapers on emotion and not sell a story based on facts and figures. Social justice is paramount to effective community relationships. Build bridges, not walls! Your uncaring actions have re-victimized not only this (Taylor’s) family but this community!”
Other criticisms: One reader said Nick Anderson’s Feb. 27 editorial cartoon with a message about community activists was ”deplorable.” And, citing a Feb. 26 photo of a person holding a sign with a message about police suicides, another reader wrote, ”I do believe in freedom of speech but there is a line we cross when we print pictures such as that. That picture didn’t inform anyone of anything but hate.”
I talked to Bennie Ivory, the executive editor of The Courier-Journal, about the news decisions that went into how the newspaper responded to last week’s events.
One of the main goals for all the coverage was to be as comprehensive as possible without losing sight of the telling details of the story, he said.
That started with the six-page, Feb. 23 special section whose stories were put together by reporters Andrew Wolfson, Megan Woolhouse and Jim Adams. The section examined six fatal shootings by Louisville police since 2000. The report used new material gleaned from files, and gathered expert opinions from around the country as to whether the shootings were justified, whether they were avoidable and whether the way Louisville police were trained could have been a factor in the shootings.
The headline bore the conclusions of the experts: ”Deadly force justified but avoidable.” And the entire package backed up what Ivory and others had suspected going into the project: Training is a key issue for this police department.
”That report is as important as anything we’ve done in a year,” Ivory said.
But the week was only beginning.
Last Monday, at about 6:15 p.m., the grand jury’s finding was announced: No indictment.
Time was an element in delivering the next day’s coverage, but the news staff produced a comprehensive report that included stories about the lack of indictment, the public reaction, the clash between the commonwealth’s attorney and a judge over whether to release testimony made to the grand jury, biographical information about the two detectives involved in the shooting and a timeline of the Taylor case.
And that was only a prelude to Tuesday afternoon and evening, when the police department and the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office released what information they could when the judge decided to deny the request to open all the grand jury testimony.
The news department actually started planning Wednesday’s paper on Tuesday morning, in advance of any release of information. The editors just didn’t know if they’d have enough to produce another six-page special section.
As the day wore on, it became obvious they did.
So reporters pored through pages and pages of information, others were sent to press conferences, neighborhoods — and, in what I thought was a very good story, a barber shop — to gauge public reaction, and photographers recorded related sights around the city.
Again, the newspaper was up against time and a welter of information, some of it still contradictory.
Ivory credits the reporters for doing well at a difficult job.
”They had a lot to go through and pull out the pertinent parts. They had to read all that and then write it in a form that was understandable, accurate and precise,” he said.
Accuracy was so important, Ivory said, that the news department requested that Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Stengel, who was familiar with all the evidence, come to the newspaper to look at the graphics we were going to publish about what happened in the room where Taylor was shot.
Stengel complied, and walked the artist through the sequence of events — who was sitting where, how far away they were (again, a story told in inches). And after the graphics were completed, they were sent to Stengel by courier to ensure their accuracy.
In the meantime, the photograph of Taylor’s cuffed hand clutching the box-cutter knife had been made available in the early evening by Stengel’s office.
Ivory said there was some discussion about whether to print the picture.
”I was a little leery of it,” he said, ”but you should be. In the end, it was a matter of bringing as much clarity as possible (to the story). The picture didn’t definitively answer every question, but it did show the box-cutter still in his (Taylor’s) hand.”
Finally, the editors decided to print it because of its news value.
Ivory said he understands people’s differing sensitivities and sensibilities when it comes to such subject matter.
”We don’t want to inflame a situation that’s already there,” Ivory said of the caution that went into the decision-making in the coverage of this story. ”We have to be concerned as professional journalists.”
And we have to be concerned as responsible members of a community that is trying to find its way through a tough, tough time.
There will be more to come.
