Why put suicide on front page?
Question: Why was the Lakeside High School student, Skyler Cullitan, given the front page? Isn’t it in poor taste to put the family and friends through even more grief? At Gonzaga Prep, we had a kid commit suicide at home earlier this year. It was never spoken about.
Why does the fact that everyone saw this make it front-page fodder? I was utterly appalled, especially since what most suicidal teens strive for is attention. One such teen may see this article and want to copycat. Not to say the paper would be to blame, but would it have been worth it? Thank you for allowing this medium. — Nick Garras, Spokane
Answer: In the matter of the Lakeside suicide, a student brought a loaded gun to school and in view of fellow students killed himself. He could as easily harmed others (although we know that wasn’t his intent). In the post-Columbine era, gun violence resulting in death at a school is a front-page story.
Our responsibility is to report events as thoroughly as possible; to answer the questions raised by our tens of thousands of readers, many of whom have students in school, many of whom worry about their own child’s mental health, many of whom are concerned about school security.
While our hearts go out to the affected family, our responsibility isn’t to meet their needs, it is to meet yours. In my 30-plus years in this business, I know of no similarly affected family whose grief would be any less terrible had the death been reported at the bottom of Page 1 or inside on the local news page. Their grief is indescribable and unimaginable, and our news coverage is incidental.
As a rule, suicides don’t make the paper if they occur outside the public view. But a public suicide on a school campus that generates enormous police response will always be news. — Steve Smith, editor
Why no coverage of Congo?
Question: I lived for 28 years in what has become again the “Democratic Republic of Congo,” retiring in 1989. However since that time, 3.5 million people have lost their lives, either from direct warfare, spinoff tribal warfare or starvation brought on by the preceding two events.
News of that region, however, is notable because of its rarity. I recently spoke by phone with a Congolese colleague. His words to me were: “Don’t forget us. War is still going on.” Isn’t it odd that a single murder in California should take up so much space in the media, but the death of 3.5 million people in Africa should go unreported? — Harvey L. Polley, Spokane
Answer: There is no simple answer to your question. History contains many examples in which society ignored human tragedy for the sake of pleasure, curiosity and misplaced priorities. One could argue that in recent times the media, citizens and political leaders of this country virtually ignored genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and famine in Africa until it was too late.
There are several reasons for the public interest in the Scott Peterson case. The public’s fascination with a homicide case that contained elements of mystery, infidelity and human tragedy is not particularly laudable, but it is a reality.
On the other hand, ongoing conflicts and human despair in faraway lands such as the Congo are difficult for readers here to contemplate and relate to in any meaningful way. The dominant international news of interest to our readers for the past two years has been the conflict in Iraq. Our readers find that story compelling and easier to relate to because U.S. military personnel are risking their lives every day in a distant land.
Over time, most news organizations based in the United States have reduced the number of reporters and the amount of news columns or air time devoted to international news coverage. Unfortunately, those cutbacks have meant that ongoing news events in places like South America and the African continent have faced even stiffer competition for attention. — Gary Graham, managing editor
Contact the ombudsman
If you’d like ombudsman Gordon Jackson to address your concerns about news coverage and commentary in The Spokesman-Review, you can e-mail him at gordonj@spokesman.com, or you can send regular mail to Jackson in care of Doug Floyd, The Spokesman-Review, 999 W. Riverside Ave., Spokane, WA 99201.