Despite the ink and paper, few things in the newspaper are black and white.
They are largely gray. And in this gray is the toil of reporters and editors across this country. It is one of the aspects I most hate about the business.
To me, the gray is comprised of the minutiae within stories; the factors that make one situation slightly different from another, the things that make one article hit the front page while another isn’t covered at all. The details in the gray area bring a headline to one crime while another falls into the police beat roundup.
I hope everyone read the letter to the editor above by Nebbie Brown. Everything Mr. Brown wrote about the anguish created by the story of two suicides is true. It’s well written and of a measured tone.
Most importantly, Mr. Brown isn’t wrong, but neither were we, if I can explain.
Coverage of suicide is the number one issue we have struggled with since I took over as managing editor more than 20 years ago. Stories about people taking their own lives are steeped in anguish, shock, disbelief and anger. They are landmines for public blowback. Truly, the easiest course for a newspaper is to ignore them altogether.
But in the heartbreak for a family, is awareness for the community, both narrow in focus and wide in scope. In the same way we cover trials, fires and car crashes, we also cover certain incidents of suicide, despite the impact on those left behind.
The gray detail of the March 1 article involves the use of firearms. The Journal-Tribune has settled on a policy of including more details in suicides that involve guns, including the name of the individual. Shooting deaths are violent, loud and ripe for fast, false rumors.
Learning that someone has died from a gunshot wound is jarring to a community. In giving more complete details in shooting deaths, we hope to fill in gaps, so the community is not left to speculation. Neighbors hearing a gunshot and then seeing first responder activity rightly wonder what happened. The incident involving Mr. Brown’s family member occurred in an apartment community in which neighbors heard a gunshot and called for help.
Mr. Brown also cites an article from 2018 involving a suicide in which the deceased individual’s name was not included. That incident did not involve a firearm. Only a few days after the March 1 story ran, another tragic incident of suicide occurred in our community, but it occurred inside a home without use of a firearm, so we assigned it minimal coverage.
Our general philosophy regarding coverage of suicides at the Journal-Tribune is that if the incident occurs in private, we will allow some privacy in its coverage. But when a gunshot rings out or the nature of the act brings it into the public’s awareness, we provide the community with more information.
We haven’t come by these coverage ideas on a whim. We debate them among the newsroom staff frequently and put them up for discussion at our Reader Advisory Board meetings. Make no mistake, the advisory board is not always unanimous in its approval of our handling of such situations.
In fact, discussions during our Advisory Board led to a major addition to our coverage of suicides. It was relayed to us that if our goal truly was awareness, rather than sensationalism, we should include information about warning signs of mental health crisis, as well as phone numbers where people can call to get help. We try to do this with every such story now.
When a member of the Journal-Tribune staff lost a family member to suicide, her courage in sharing her story led us to launch a yearlong series on the topic that earned an award from The Associated Press and led to real change in the way mental health incidents are handled in the community.
We are part of this community. We care about its people and its stories. And we care about its successes as well as its struggles. We care enough to write difficult stories to answer questions, end rumors and start conversations.
Mr. Brown is absolutely correct about the impact this story had on the lives of those in his family. I know this because every time we run a story like this, I take the phone calls from upset family members. I’ve yet to convince one to understand our side.
Mr. Brown asks for an apology. While I won’t offer one for the story itself, I do have a few others.
I am sincerely sorry for the pain the story caused the two families.
I am sorry we have to cover suicides at all.
I am sorry that we sometimes have to hold a mirror up to the community that reveals an unpleasant reflection.
I’m sorry this is our burden.
–Chad Williamson is the managing editor at the Journal-Tribune.