It’s a truism of newspapering that readers direct their most critical comments to the ombudsman. That was certainly the case with the recent series called “Best Men” on one family’s very personal experience with marriage.
The reporters who wrote the four-part, 10-page series received more than 100 notes from readers praising their well-written, insightful account of the family dynamics behind the Hyett brothers’ respective weddings — one gay, one straight — and the Hyett parents’ divorce. Readers said they were grateful to the Hyetts for their candor and the courage it took to be profiled. Others wept as they read. “Congratulations,” wrote one, “on an excellent piece that captures the emotions beyond the politics.”
But most of the readers who contacted this office took a different view. They said they didn’t understand the point of dissecting one family’s marriages, especially on Page 1 and at such length. Some likened it to the Globe’s version of reality TV. Others lamented the loss of the news stories displaced to make room for the series. The argument, for the most part, was not about the gay subject matter; rather, it was that such a personal family story just wasn’t news.
“I read every word yet felt like a voyeur, reading intimate details I had no business knowing about,” wrote Margot Biggin of Danvers. She said she and her colleagues couldn’t figure out whether the series was about the Hyetts, gay marriage, or all marriage. “I don’t feel like I understand marriage any better or that the Hyett family, wonderful as they seem, have any lessons to teach,” she said. “Clearly, the Globe must have felt this was a critically important piece to devote so many resources, ink, and space to it,” she continued, “but I’m befuddled.” Reader Allan Benjamin said he, too, was confused. “Is this like reality TV for the Globe?” he asked.
“There is hard news to cover,” said Norma Rosenberg.
From Andrew Compaine, a psychiatrist: “It seems to me that the greatest value of this extensive piece, which for days dominated the first section of the Globe, was for the Hyett family in doing their own emotional healing. . . . Doesn’t the Globe have its first responsibility in reporting the news and in news analysis and not as a journal for memoir pieces?”
From a 40-year-subscriber: “I would just like to know, what was the point?” The idea, responds Mark Morrow, deputy managing editor for projects, was “to find a way to write at a deep level about this enormous change that came over the institution of marriage this year, and to do it in a form and voice you couldn’t do in breaking news.” It was a way, he says, to get at the complexity of marriage at a time when the institution has been redefined by the court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, “to dive deep into a family story with this extraordinary socially transforming event at its middle.”
Page 1 was the “natural home” for such a story, he said, and the Hyetts — one of two-dozen families who responded to a call for volunteer subjects — agreed to participate because they saw the importance of the project.
The Globe is to be applauded for approaching an important subject in an innovative way. I read every word and appreciated the graceful writing of Patricia Wen and Tom Farragher, two of the Globe’s best. But, like some readers, I was confused about the intent of the series. I went from thinking it was about gay marriage, to thinking it was about all marriage, to thinking it was a family portrait.The series had bits of all three, but in the end I saw it as more about a family, with all the usual tensions, than about the gay marriage within that family. For those who saw it similarly, it was an unusual presence on Page 1.
The front page is a fine place for features, especially personal narratives that shed light on social policy. Last year’s “Barbara’s Story” series about a mother giving up custody of her boys is a shining example. So, too, the 1999 “Choosing Naia” series about a couple’s decision to continue a pregnancy despite tests indicating Down syndrome.
But “Best Men” was different — as much family portrait as issue exploration. It would have been at home in the Living section or the Sunday magazine, and perhaps less confusing there for some readers who puzzled over its point.
What’s gone missing
Readers have been asking about some missing features. The Spiritual Life column, which ran on Saturday, is no more. Peaks & Valleys, the Sunday column about life beyond Boston, has also disappeared. And the Sunday TV Book has been reduced in size again, squeezing out the late night and sports listings (which do appear daily in the sports section).
It’s not just because someone is on vacation. The features have been eliminated as part of a newspaperwide effort to control increasing costs.
Readers — especially those with insomnia — urge the Globe to reconsider. “We’ve got too many problems and some of them keep us up at night,” says a Cambridge reader. “So at least give us back the late TV listings.”
