Coverage last week of the removal of Ashley Pond’s siblings from her mother because of child-neglect allegations nags at me. I can’t help but ask whether The Oregonian in its own way neglects children like Ashley.
After aggressive reporting surrounding the arrest last August of Ward Weaver in Ashley’s death, the newspaper has all but abandoned tracking how well the state protects children who are abused or neglected. Reporters in the newspaper’s South Bureau diligently have covered the developments in the cases of Weaver and two child-protective workers who mishandled reports about Ashley. But the overall newspaper has failed to provide consistent, ongoing coverage of the agency overseeing child protection.
No one routinely checks in with Department of Human Services child-protection workers, except for seeking updates on the Oregon City case. Despite the weeks of front-page stories on the case last year, readers of the newspaper today could not even determine whether child-protective services grew or shrank in recent legislative budget actions.
At the height of the investigation involving the deaths of Ashley and Miranda Gaddis, the newspaper exposed several systemic problems with how the state tracks and responds to thousands of lost girls who face neglect and abuse. It mounted legal challenges to see important public records.
But with no team or reporter regularly covering child protection, the newspaper lacks substantive stories on the issue. Aside from updates on the Ashley case, the newspaper this year has published three local stories that offered context or enterprise beyond reporting a criminal incident. For a similar period in 1999, when a reporter was devoted to the issue, 19 of those types of stories appeared, ranging from studies of abusive parents to news features on foster parents to interviews with abused children.
The Oregonian’s current coverage is not much different from that found in a study by the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families at the University of Maryland. Last year, it reviewed coverage in 12 newspapers (including The Oregonian) and on four national TV networks and found that stories on abuse and neglect focused on criminal incidents, and fewer than one in six explored policies.
Therese Bottomly, managing editor for news, regrets that no reporter is devoted full time to covering child protection. She says the staff has been consumed by tremendous demands — including a record legislative session, pension reform, health-plan cutbacks, tax issues and terrorism investigations. “I have difficulty saying it should have been our No. 1 priority, but it certainly could have been a higher priority.”
When deciding which reporters cover what, she says the newspaper has to consider that much already has been written on the issue and that other significant reporting on children in peril is under way. Bottomly also suspects limited new ground would have been plowed by covering the agency more closely, given the past detailed coverage.
I share Bottomly’s frustration with what can be the repetitiveness and limitations of stories on child protection, how confidentiality and bureaucratic issues can make the stories balky and difficult. As a reporter and editor I wrote or shepherded predictable or weak ones into the newspaper. But I think that’s a reflection of poor execution and doesn’t dim the importance of finding and telling the stories.
I agree with Beth Frerking, the director of the Casey Center, which serves as a resource for journalists covering children’s issues. Frerking says journalists must give voice to the voiceless. “This is a group of people who have the least representation, the least political clout, the least financial support. They are the people who never get a voice,” she says. “I’m not only talking about in the media. I’m talking about in their daily lives.”
In the aftermath of Ashley Pond’s death, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber said the state of Oregon failed her. Is The Oregonian failing children again?
