She wanted a letter in the paper, word for word. The letter was from her sister, a victim of child molestation. A judge had just reduced the amount of prison time for the man convicted of the crime; the man’s time on house arrest counted towards his time in prison, the judge ruled.
She wanted this letter from her sister in the paper. I told her and her father I’d have to talk to my editor.¹ Back in the newsroom, I informed my editor of the situation. That’s when the victim’s sister and father walked in.
They came into my editor’s office, the sister taking the chair across from my editor and the father standing behind his daughter. I leaned against the wood of the doorway. The sister still had her sunglasses on, but I knew her eyes were red from crying. Her father had tear-stained cheeks. The man who had molested their blood was serving less time in prison for his crime.
The sister told my editor about the letter. My editor calmly explained what they could do with it. Her voice kept level while she spoke. She listened intently as the sister explained why the family wanted the letter in the paper.
Then the sister began to cry. The father put his hand on her shoulder. My editor began to tear up too. She reached over the assortment of papers on her desk and put her hand over the sister’s. I turned away because I didn’t want them to see that I was about to cry.
Now, I’m not so sure that was the right reaction, turning away and fighting the tears. When she reached for the sister’s hand, my editor stopped being a reporter and became a human. No. I don’t think that’s the right way to say that.
This experience over the summer at my internship at the Chieftain newspaper in New Mexico is the most traumatic one I’ve had as a reporter. It’s really nothing compared to what the reporters at the Joplin Globe went through in the aftermath of the tornado that razed their town.
Many of them lost their homes. Many produced great content for the paper. Many struggled to balance their obligations to their paper and to their profession with their obligations to their community.
We watched a film about the newspaper’s response to the disaster in lecture today. One reporter in the film said, when he got to the hospital to cover the story there, he had to put his notebook away and help his neighbors. One of the paper’s photographers said he took a picture of a man trapped in rubble and had to keep going; he said he called some other people over to help the man.
Katherine asked how we would balance these two obligations, these two strong forces pulling us in what may seem like contradictory directions. I think it takes a lot of courage either way. If you’re a journalist, how do you not get what you see to people who can’t be there? As a person witnessing devastation, how do you not help those who need it?
Someone in lecture said, with definitiveness, that you always had to be a “human being” and help the people who need it, no matter what.
The next few sentences were hard to write. I almost didn’t because I was afraid of coming off as too callous. Hopefully I chose my words carefully enough.
In the film, Charles Davis, a professor at the J-School, said journalism is inherently a human profession – journalists get to interact with a variety of people and experience a wide range of human conditions. We couldn’t do our jobs if we weren’t human, I think, is what Davis was getting at.
That said: I understand what my fellow reporter was saying in lecture, about being “human.” But I have to disagree. We’re journalists for a reason: we have chosen to pursue a career in which we get to disseminate information to the masses. We do this so they don’t have to.
We can be human beings and still get the job done. We have an obligation to our readers and our communities to get that information out there. There are only so many of us. Besides, being a good reporter means you’re a good human being.
1. I’ve also written about this experience here.
Tags: disasters, ethical dilemmas, J4450, Joplin
Behind Blue Skies 