Dearth is a tender topic, and readers don’t hide their anger when they feel the Globe doesn’t show proper respect to accident victims or their families. Two recent cases make the point.
A Dec. 11 story on the front of the City & Region section carried the headline, ”Two elderly women in car killed by train.” It began: ”It was a double bingo day … ”
The story went on to describe the circumstances of the accident – how Mary Siegel, 80, driving along a familiar route, failed to see the warnings at the North Andover crossing; how she drove onto the tracks, into the path of an oncoming train; and how she and passenger Juliette Condee, 83, were killed.
Readers were left puzzling – and in some cases, fuming – over the ”double bingo” reference. It couldn’t mean… could it?
Those who followed the story to Page B6 found, in paragraph 16, some overdue context: a reference to a bingo game the women were to attend that day. Still further down, almost three-quarters through the story, readers learned the women might have planned to attend two bingo games that day – thus ”double bingo.”
But some readers either didn’t read that far or, by the time they did, had already found the ”double bingo” opening objectionable – in part because it could be interpreted as a sick reference to the double fatality.
”It was the most callous and insensitive way to write about a horrendous accident,” said Globe subscriber Arlene Eagan of Newburyport, who was among those readers who thought ”double bingo” referred to the two deaths. ”I found it very disturbing.” Said another caller, ”It was a very tacky way to start the story. I rarely get upset at stories, but this was in such poor taste.”
The intent of the phrase, said Peter Canellos, deputy managing editor for metro news, was to quickly convey a personal detail about the victims so that they would be seen as individuals, not statistics. Canellos said he read the story before publication and saw nothing troubling.
But two people can read the same sentence quite differently, which is part of what makes this rather small example interesting. Canellos said he later learned that a city desk editor, Kim Tan, had questioned the phrase during the editing process. Tan acknowledges he ”did a doubletake” when he first saw the text because he thought ”double bingo” was indeed intended as a word play on the two fatalities. But, he says, he then realized the writer was simply trying to provide a humanizing detail and let it go.
(Note this law of journalism: If an editor finds something confusing in a story, readers will, too.)
”The double entendre I do regret,” says Canellos. ”If it had gotten wider discussion, we would have noticed it.”
On a broader scale, the case speaks to one of the Globe’s greatest vulnerabilities: its reputation among some readers as flip or indifferent. That’s a regular theme in the complaints sent to the ombudsman office, and an ambiguous story of this sort serves to confirm the suspicions.
The drowning deaths of four boys in Lawrence was a tragedy by any measure. Some readers felt the Globe compounded the pain with the photos that appeared on Page 1 a week ago Sunday and Monday.
Sunday’s photo showed rescue workers pulling one of the boys from the Merrimack River, although little of the child is visible. The Monday photo showed the mother of 7-year-old Christopher Casado, slumped on a couch, hands over her face. She appears to be weeping.
”Congratulations! You’ve sunk to the depths of the trashy papers. I am appalled at the picture on the front page of Sunday’s paper. Have you no compassion for the families of those children?” demanded one reader. Another asked, ”What purpose does a picture of a grieving mother serve?” An e-mail signed ”Mothers Who Care” declared: ”As nurses and mothers we were appalled at the news coverage … the graphic photography was unnecessary. Did anyone consider the families who were subjected to this tasteless insensitivity?”
As a parent, I appreciate the protective instinct that motivates these readers – but I also believe the photos were needed to communicate the enormity of the loss.
In the Sunday photo, although the arm of one victim is visible, the essence of the image is the dramatic rescue effort at the icy river’s edge. Globe editors decided not to use a second photo that showed a boy’s face. Editors do wrestle with issues of taste and appropriateness is such cases.
As for the photo of the mourning mother, I can’t argue with director of photography Catie Aldrich’s assessment: ”A tragedy such as this is every parent’s worst fear. Showing the grief [is] part of the story.”
The ombudsman represents the readers. Her opinions and conclusions are her own. Phone 617-929-3020 or, to leave a message, 929-3022. Our e-mail address is ombud@globe.com.
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 12/23/2002.
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
