The Bee has a reputation for large-scale reporting projects, usually a multi-day series of stories about important public issues. A number of topics have been dealt with this way in recent years: the future of the Sierra Nevada, the scourge of methamphetamine, homeless teens and political campaigns.
The most recent subject to get intense attention from The Bee was “Broken Lives,” a four-part series published earlier this month, reported and written by Mareva Brown. Brown told readers stories about local children who — for a variety of reasons — have been in the foster care system. Brown’s stories reported on the lives of only a few of the 6,000 Sacramento County children living in a foster care system established by law. “The goal was to show what it was like to be a child in the system,” Brown told me in an interview about the project.
Reporters normally get to ask the questions, but Brown agreed to be interviewed by me about what it took to do this series of stories. Her passion for her assignment to cover children and families became clear when she described the process, and what she learned.
“It is so interesting how we deal with children in trouble, knowing what will happen if we do nothing,” she said. “We can fix them,” she said, referring to the children’s futures. She paused, and then said, “We don’t fix most of them … That’s why I really wanted to put a human face on this.”
Reporter Brown wanted Bee readers to know — through her stories — that these children are more than statistics, social theory subjects and potential problems. They are children who need help, help that is not always delivered by the system the laws created.
It took her more than two years to get this done. Brown began working on this project in April 1999. She made contacts, convinced families she was interested in their stories and juggled other assignments and demands along the way. Because of the unusual length of time involved, it took a few interesting turns.
She had a chance to watch the children in the system grow older and their situations evolve. One mother, with five children in the system, died in an alley.
Brown’s reporting encompassed a maternity leave, and it outlasted several editors due to promotions and newsroom changes. While on leave at home, she stayed in touch with some of the families and the children she was tracking through the system.
The technique and the mechanics of the reporting involved some routine effort and some that was not so routine. She spent all of her time on this project only during the final 10 weeks or so, gathering the final information and wrapping it all up.
Even though she has 14 years experience as a newspaper reporter, covering everything from natural disasters to government agencies dealing with children, she found surprises.
She was surprised to discover one child regarding her skeptically as one more in an endless series of adults who rarely made her life better. Brown said later of the child’s perspective, “Something horrible usually happens in court.”
These children were accustomed to strange adults asking lots of questions, but they did not understand adult journalistic issues such as “I will not use your real name.”
To gain access to the families and court records, Brown had to convince everyone it was worthwhile, and then earn the trust of court officials, parents and social workers.
Along with The Bee’s editor, she agreed to maintain the confidentiality of the children and families involved. That meant that the names of children she used were fictional, though the people were real, which she explained in the stories. She still refers to the real children by made-up names.
Reporter Brown is a mother, and she knows from personal experience about growing children. The fact her younger daughter is the same age as one of the foster children helped give her perspective. The children she wrote about know a lot more than most about dysfunctional adults, missing parents, overworked social workers and frequent court dates.
Brown described how after listening to the tough stories from these foster children, at least once she went home, woke up her child and gave her a hug.
She also recalled a conversation with the 8-year-old with the pseudonym Mallory: “I kept telling her, ‘I can’t do anything to make it better. I wish I could, but I can’t.’ ” Maybe she can.
I believe that revealing the truth to a community about itself can make things better, even when it involves reporting on neglected children in an overwhelmed system. That is exactly the sort of large-scale reporting project Bee readers expect.
By early this week about 150 readers had been in touch with Brown wanting to help, an indication that her initial goal for the series was accomplished. Calls came in from readers who want to do something to assist a child. (If you are interested in helping a child in need, call Court Appointed Special Advocates at 875-6460 and volunteer.) If enough people are moved enough to make a call, or help a child, Mallory’s situation could change for the better and the results would certainly be worth the two years of effort and everything else that went into this series.
Brown now looks ahead to reporting more stories about the details of the child welfare system, having provided readers with some of the background they need to better understand the difficult decisions ahead. “There are really a lot of good stories to do on the foster care system,” Brown said. “I wanted the readers to know what it is about.”
It seems to me readers have been given a good start.
Is ‘alright’ all right?
A former teacher was horrified, and a few other readers were irritated, at the use of the word “alright” in a headline in The Bee last Sunday.
“Never, never is that spelling correct,” said Doris McClintock. The dictionary says the correct spelling is “all right,” just as our teachers said years ago. The kindest definition I could find for “alright” is that is it is “non-standard.” The dictionary did not suggest that it might fit better in a tight headline.
Morphing the language?
Speaking of the language, a Bee story about Bill Moyers’ “Earth on Edge” television special mentioned “the world you’re sharing with 6 billion other anthropomorphs.” That stopped one Bee reader in her tracks as “one of the weirdest sentences I’ve ever seen in The Bee.” It should have been a clue that the spell checking device in the computer doesn’t recognize “anthropomorphs,” but as it turned out, neither did the author of the wire service article.
“Anthropology” certainly is the study of humans, and “anthropometry” deals with measurement of the human body. “Anthropic” is “of or pertaining to man.” But “anthropomorphism” is “attributing of human shape or characteristics to a god, animal or inanimate thing.” For example, Snoopy might properly be characterized as an anthropomorph because he talks, thinks and acts like a human, but isn’t really. He’s a dog.
A dog that walks on all fours, wags its tail and barks — dog-like — would definitely be non-anthropomorphic. He’s still a dog.
And human beings, which is what the writer was trying to describe, probably could be called “people.” Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” is an authority I trust. “Avoid fancy words,” it says. “Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy and the cute. Do not be tempted by a $20 word when there is a 10-center handy.”
