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For most of the 1970s, I was a reporter and editor for The Evening Press in Binghamton, New York, and for several of those years I covered the police beat. I wrote crime and arrest stories daily, and some were pretty good.

Following what I had learned in journalism school, I paid relatively little attention to the human side of the unfortunates who were arrested. In a way, they were immaterial, fodder for my impartial stories, unless I could somehow make my story even better by finding some particularly juicy angle. It was always about the story; the story ruled.

Last November, the tables were richly turned on me when my own son was arrested. A reporter from the local newspaper called the house to confirm my employment and ask if I had any comment. My employment? The question momentarily puzzled me. I thought briefly, then declined to comment. The reporter dutifully put that in the story, just as she had been taught.

Of course, there were things I could have said about my troubled child, but what earthly good would be done by baring those painful, private matters? What was paramount for this reporter, as it had been for me years ago, was the story, and she was checking off one more item on her to-do list: get comment from the family. I had no sense she cared how we were feeling; she seemed more interested in ensuring I had her mobile phone number in case I changed my mind.

I had a hard time fetching the newspaper from the front lawn the next day. At least the story was not on the front page, and it was an accurate account of the arrest and allegations facing my son. But I think it included too much by half. I was dismayed to read my name and place of work, but thought, well, maybe that comes from being an occasional op-ed columnist for the newspaper. I was really stunned to read my wife’s name and occupation.

For what crime stories are the names and occupations of a twenty-six-year-old defendant’s parents relevant? None, I would say, so I suspect the newspaper was succumbing to the lure of “the story” rather than what was really necessary for a full report. A cautionary tale began to emerge. See? Even the kids of upstanding parents can get in trouble with the law. Certainly my being a university professor caught the reporter’s eye. But the icing on this tasty story, apparently, was that my wife is an Episcopal priest.

My colleagues at work were supportive, and some wanted to write scalding letters to the editor. I discouraged them, appreciating the sentiment but fearing the results. Rather than write a letter, I took the matter up with the newspaper’s reader advocate.

I found the exchange unsatisfying, as his investigation in the newsroom came up with “prominence” and “full disclosure” as the reasons I was named; my wife, he said, was added to the story because of an “impulse to identify both parents,” although I suppose her profession had its “prominence,” too. I would have thought the suspect’s prominence — not that of his parents — was operative. The irony that I gained my alleged prominence by writing for that very newspaper has not escaped me.

All of this, of course, has given me deep pause in my teaching career. As I teach basic news writing, how will I frame “prominence” as a major part of news value?

A journalist caught up in the news has little refuge. My first instinct was to defend my privacy, but what, then, of the things I have told my students over the last twenty-five years? I could straighten my shoulders and say, well, of course the paper had to report all of this; it was news. But to deny the pain caused by the story is equally impossible.

The reporter has gone on with her job, writing dozens of police and crime stories since November. And why not? When you cover the police and your goal is a great story, your time for reflection lasts only until the next squawk from the scanner.

Those unfortunate people who get caught up in the news, though, as I was, cannot leap to the next story, and their unintended newsworthiness can last a long time. From now on I’ll try to teach my students to think hard about what constitutes news, and to recognize that showing kindness to the subjects of their stories will do their work no harm.

To read the articles in the May/June 2006 issue, click here.

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