September 14, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Opinion

Local readers have a right to non-sanitized news

After last week’s Local came out, I received the angriest phone call in my 11 years with the Local, the last four-and-a-half as a full-time writer and editor, (and one of the angriest in my 40 years in journalism).

A woman whom I will not name quickly motored into third gear and continued to accelerate. Her complaint was about last week’s page one obituary of Karl-Eric Strandberg, a former advertising manager for the Local who died Aug. 25 of cancer at the age of 63.

“The article was a disgrace!” she insisted. “You should be ashamed of yourself! Cancel my subscription! I will never read the Local again! I’ve spoken to friends who read the article, and they agree with me. It’s no wonder you’ve had problems down there at the [Local] when you put something like this in the paper.”

The caller’s main bone of contention was the third paragraph of the article, which stated in part: “…The Local staff was informed last fall that Karl had been fired. We asked for the reason and were not given one … Many of us think he did a great job and that the firing was an outrage...”

According to the caller, “The fact that Karl was fired had no business being in an obituary. An obituary should only have the good things about a person’s life … And your mention of his daughter and her (female) companion was also disgraceful. Didn’t you think about what you were doing? You’re destroying a man’s memory! I’m sure Karl would not have wanted you to mention those things, and I’m sure his daughter will be outraged, just as I am…”

I pointed out that the obituary was more than 1,600 words long, of which exactly one 86-word paragraph dealt with the firing, that it clearly stated that most of us believed the firing was outrageous, that the article was replete with praise for Karl, that an obituary is supposed to highlight the most significant events of a person’s life, and that Karl’s many long-time customers in the Chestnut Hill area had a right to know why he suddenly disappeared from their lives last fall.

The caller was not appeased, to say the least. Her criticism grew more and more intense. By a coincidence, a few days after the phone call, at L.A. Fitness in Roxborough I ran into Mark Petteruti, a horticulturist and Chestnut Hill resident who owns a floral shop, Botanical Expressions, on Bethlehem Pike in Flourtown.

“Thank you for that obituary,” he said. “Karl was a wonderful man, very professional, and I wondered why he was no longer our ad rep. We never even knew he was fired or that he had died until we read your article.”

The caller’s bitter denunciation did make me apprehensive about how Karl’s daughter, Brita, would respond to the issues the caller had raised. But, I was relieved on Friday when I received an e-mail from Brita (an attorney who now lives in Washington, D.C.), which said, “I just saw the article on the Web, and it is wonderful. I am sure my dad would particularly appreciate that you didn’t pull any punches about his firing.”

I don’t want to sound self-serving, but this episode represents a fundamental issue on which journalists and readers often disagree (and even journalists may disagree among themselves). The issue is whether or not — and to what extent — bad news about a person, business or institution should be printed or withheld by a news organization.

For example, no one would argue that an obituary about Richard Nixon should include the facts about his involvement in the Watergate burglary and cover-up, but what about an ordinary person? Most press people would argue that the important facts about a person’s life, both positive and negative, should be included.

On Sept. 6, for instance, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a lengthy obituary with a banner headline about Georgie Shaw, a South Philadelphia singer who had two million selling records in the 1950s. Much of the article, however, recalled Shaw’s failed marriages, alcoholism and bankruptcy. (“He ended up selling his blood to pay for liquor.”) Should these clearly negative aspects of Shaw’s life have been mentioned? The subject could be debated for hours.

This issue often comes up in local crime news, as well. The Local’s weekly “Crime Report,” for example, leaves out the names and direct addresses of businesses that have been victimized by crime. Should the names be left out? Of course most businesses probably do not want their names mentioned in the Crime Report — or in individual articles about crime — but is it our job to be cheerleaders and unofficial public relations representatives, or is it our job to give readers all of the information we have about events and issues of importance to them?

I would say it’s a little of both. I do not mind assigning and running “puff pieces” about local businesses, for example; in fact, I do it frequently. I feel this is part of our contribution to promoting the image of Chestnut Hill. But when it comes to hard news such as crime, which clearly impacts all of our lives, I feel we have an obligation to readers not to sanitize, sugarcoat or airbrush the facts.

We should resist euphemisms and political correctness and temptations to engage in self-censorship as vigorously as possible. Readers have a right to know everything we know about significant events, such as the names and addresses of businesses victimized by crime, the names of people arrested and charged with crimes, etc.

If we were simply engaged in a popularity contest, we would withhold unpleasant facts about individuals and businesses in the community, but if we truly want to serve the public interest, we will print the facts as honestly and thoroughly as possible and let the chips fall where they may.

Len Lear