An editor dispatched a young reporter to interview the children of a Hartford woman who had just committed suicide in jail, thinking there could be a teary front-page story in the now-motherless youngsters.
The family had no telephone, so she went from door to door until she found the children walking down the street with a teacher.
She explained her mission, and the teacher yelled: These children just lost their mother. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?
The reporter went back to the office, without a story.
That encounter of more than 20 years ago kept coming back to me earlier this month as I dealt with a complaint from the family of a woman who had been bludgeoned to death in the same part of town.
A 12-inch article about the woman’s death had been published next to the obituaries. It relied on neighbors’ description of the 30-year-old woman as a streetwalker and drug user and said her apartment had attracted visitors day and night. It also reported that her two children had been removed from her custody. That line, especially, infuriated the callers, who noted that the children had just lost their mother and had to go back to school.
Then the article reported that the woman had never been charged or arrested in connection with any crime.
Her mother and sister were rightfully angry, although hurt might be a better description of the emotion they expressed.
Ironically, had the situation been reversed and this victim been a person charged or even convicted of a crime, the newspaper would not have reported unsubstantiated allegations of illegal behavior.
It also was the only article, so far as I could tell, that The Courant had ever published about the woman.
The only kind word was a quote, “She was sweet.” There was not one telling detail — a favorite color, sport or childhood aspiration — acknowledging this victim’s particularity as a human being. In death, her life was reduced to a stereotype.
Journalists like to say they write about people “warts and all.” But no person is all warts. Every human being is blessedly complex.
Too often, people are cast simplistically in the newspaper: They are heroes or they are villains. Or they are heroes with clay feet, another favorite story line. (Put in that category some articles about once-adored athletes or politicians on the take.)
Fortunately, the article about the woman’s killing is more the exception than the rule. And many journalists, despite the stereotypes about them, have experiences like mine of 20 years ago.
A suburban reporter once meticulously reported when and where a robbery victim transported the daily proceeds from the (named) store where she worked. The victim called and berated the reporter for possibly exposing her to future assaults.
Another writer grew up in a housing project and knew many of the people whose murders he later covered as a reporter. “I try to keep in mind that somebody’s mother is going to be reading my article, or somebody’s children,” he said last week.
It is not as if reporters and editors are immune from the tragedies of life. Journalists have nursed dying parents, children and spouses. Some have had substance-abuse problems or coped with friends or relatives who are alcoholics, drug abusers or have AIDS. They’ve been victims of crime. They’ve been married, divorced, separated, remarried. They’ve raised children who have succeeded and children who have disappointed — all in the same family. In that, all families, rich, poor, black, white, are alike. Think of the Kennedys of Massachusetts.
There isn’t much The Courant can do now to undo the hurt its article caused a family and its friends. The mother said she hoped her complaint and conversations with me and Managing Editor Clifford L. Teutsch could spare other people such treatment in the future.
I am not advocating ignoring or distorting reality. But relying on hearsay or reducing a person to a stereotype does not reflect reality. In this case, the article could have been a brief account of the woman’s death, followed, perhaps, by a more complete account of her life if editors decided that would be of interest to readers.
In covering such tragedies, it might help to ask: How would wetreat this person if she had been one of our relatives, or if she had grown up on our block? How would we treat this person if we considered her part of our community?
