Horrendous tragedies like the killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., present the media with special challenges.
Newspapers and television, especially, must grapple with myriad concerns as they attempt to tell readers what happened and why — and to provide some context of possible consequences. They must choose — sometimes quickly — the words and images that best convey the gravity of the events. And they must, hopefully, turn a local lens on a national story.
There’s always the risk of succumbing to overkill or a too-graphic presentation. And the concern — fear, even — that coverage, especially that spotlighting the perpetrators, will spark similar incidents.
Against that backdrop, I’d like to give readers a look at how we dealt with these concerns as we handled the Littleton story.
The story broke about 3 p.m. on Tuesday. “By about 5 p.m. it looked like many would be dead and we could have one of the biggest stories of the year and the worst school violence in the nation’s history,” recalled Managing Editor Dennis Hartig. The decision was made to use 2 inside pages “so we could give readers as much detail as we could and to signal its importance by taking virtually the entire front for the shooting.”
“We had our best people working on the presentation,” said Pilot Editor Kay Tucker Addis.
At the onset, Addis expressed certain concerns to Hartig and Deputy Managing Editor Nelson Brown, but didn’t issue any definite ground rules or absolute no-nos. “I wanted to ensure,” she said, “that we did not go over the edge with our A1 presentation. Yes, this was an insane, horrible tragedy, almost incomprehensible. But…I expressed a concern that we not create a front-page that shrieked or screamed.”
“By its nature, this was a sensational story to begin with,” said Brown, who served as news editor the day the story broke. “We didn’t need to or want to do anything in the presentation that went beyond what was self-evident. It also was a story that touched everyone in some way. Our presentation needed to immediately give readers that sense.”
Readers, Brown said, “are smart; they would not respect us for sanitizing” the story.
At least one newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times, did not splash news of the high school massacre on its front page on Wednesday because it did not want to terrify children, its editor said.
The massacre was the front page of The Pilot on Wednesday and Thursday and our coverage drew mixed reviews: Readers praised a story offering tips for identifying violence-prone teen-agers. But some readers objected to the questionably BIG TREATMENT given Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two alleged teen gunmen profiled in the story “Social outcasts turned killers.” It was the large, above-the-fold photos of the two youngsters that ticked off readers.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Daily Press carried a similar front-page story but ran much smaller (in some cases, tiny) front-page photos of the youngsters.
Katherine Neiderer of Elizabeth City, N.C., a mother of four and a one-time assistant newspaper photo editor, was “really disturbed” by the photos. “Now, every sick kid will get the idea” he or she can get similar media attention by committing a violent crime, said Neiderer, a former Colorado resident with a daughter attending school there. She said the photos should have appeared inside the paper.
“Oh, my God, somebody’s going to imitate them. Don’t the newspaper people ever learn?” was the first reaction of Marsha Arey of Norfolk.
“Why doesn’t the editor write a personal letter to all the gangs?” said Carroll Evans of Virginia Beach. ” `Do something stupid and The Pilot will put you on the front page, with your own larger than life print.’ ”
Debbie Holmes of Chesapeake objected to a front-page photo Wednesday that showed students and police huddled behind a car while an unidentified person lay on the sidewalk nearby. Holmes, who assumed the unidentified person was dead, asked, “Where was your sense of decency in an indecent situation?”
“We all realize the severity of what happened and we all know that there are bodies of the victims, but they don’t need to be shown,” said Lisa R. Lawrence.
Brown said it was not known at the time of publication whether the prone individual was dead. “But, had we known it was a dead body, would we have run it? I would say probably yes, in this case,” Brown said. “The figure on the sidewalk is not identifiable nor are there obvious wounds.”
Addis added: “In selecting which photos to use, our photo editors and page designers always are careful not to use photos that prominently show bodies or that invade the privacy of a victim’s family. While I did not feel the photo we used on A1 Wednesday, showing a body on the sidewalk in the background, violated our standards, we probably could have selected a photo that had huge impact without showing a body.”
Addis was “particularly pleased” with The Pilot’s A4 Focus page on Wednesday, which looked at tightening security in schools, other recent school shootings in America, and had local teens responding to the tragedy.
One of the paper’s responsibilities, Addis said, is to “try to anticipate and answer questions, especially from Hampton Roads readers: How could this happen? What’s to prevent this from happening in a Hampton Roads school? How do we know our children are safe in school? What are the signs of teens so troubled that they would resort to this?”
Addis thought Thursday’s paper carried some stories of heroism. Like the story of the teacher who tried to guide students to safety before he was gunned down and the efforts of some teenagers to save him. Those stories, Addis added, “could have gotten more prominent play. As we get more information about the victims, I hope we’ll consider their stories for A1.”
