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It was Mr. Wong’s turn to pick his granddaughter up from school that day. But shortly after he left his apartment, at the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong, flames burst from the tower where he and his wife lived. “My wife is inside!” he screamed, pointing toward the fire.

There to capture Wong’s anguish was Tyrone Siu, a Pulitzer-winning photographer from Reuters. Siu had just pulled up to the scene, and he quickly took a series of striking shots of the building aflame. But the one that stands out is of Wong, seventy-one, whose face is racked by the pain of a man powerless to save his wife. It was, as noted in the Sunday Long Read, the rare photo that “captures the emotion of an event and the event itself in the same frame.”

Wong, who gave Reuters only his surname, knew better than most how dangerous this building was. A certified electrician and plumber, he had long harbored concerns about the Styrofoam boards that covered windows and the mesh outside his unit—both of which are now seen as accelerants for the fire, which killed at least one hundred and sixty people.

Wong’s son said that his dad managed to call his mother shortly after the flames erupted. They “had a short conversation that lasted about a minute.” Moments later, “she disappeared.” She remains unaccounted for.

“It’s a picture that tells you everything straight away,” Siu said. “No matter where you are from in the world, you can feel what Mr. Wong is feeling, the helplessness and the pain.”

Here is what President Trump has said to or about various women reporters in the past month:

“Quiet, piggy.” 

“A terrible person and terrible reporter.” 

“Ugly, both inside and out.” 

“A stupid person.” 

“Stupid and nasty.” 

“I got a perfect mark, which you would be incapable of.” 

“Obnoxious—actually, a terrible reporter.”

Here is what White House reporters then said to the president about his insults:  

Yes, we know, journalists are told never to make themselves part of the story. But what should they do when someone, particularly the president of the United States, makes them part of the story?

The most recent example: At a press briefing in the White House on Monday, ABC News’s Rachel Scott wanted to know whether Trump would release the video of the double-strike attack on the two shipwrecked survivors in the Caribbean.

Scott said, “Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2 off the coast of Venezuela.” 

Trump responded, “I didn’t say that. You said that. I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news.”

And yet Scott persisted: “Are you committing to releasing the full video?” 

That’s when Trump lost it: “You’re the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious—a terrible, actually, a terrible reporter, and it’s always the same thing with you.”

And that was where the matter died. The next questions were about midterm elections, fertilizer prices, Obamacare premiums, and this doozy: “If you had one Christmas wish for America besides making American farmers great again, what would it be?”

What is a White House press corps to do? It’s complicated, especially as its ranks are increasingly filled with personalities from sycophantic outlets, so we wouldn’t expect pushback from them. And this isn’t to suggest that Scott’s fellow reporters should do a performative outrage routine. 

But the next time this happens, legitimate journalists ought to pose a perfectly legitimate question. Scott’s efforts should have been the springboard for more detailed follow-ups. Something like, “Just to make sure we have this right, Mr. President: Five days ago, you said this about the video: ‘I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have we’d certainly release, no problem.’ That’s the exact quote that Rachel Scott was just referring to. Are you now backtracking from that?” And if the president goes nuclear again, the next reporter can ask, “I’m trying to clarify which position you’re taking, the one from last week where you said you’d release the video, or the one today where you’ve hedged?”

Journalists like to proclaim their solidarity with one another, usually at gala fundraising dinners, or during panels in the lecture halls of schools like the one where I teach, Columbia University. But most of our audience will never see those events. What they do see are press briefings where reporters are expected to ask hard questions and follow up when officials weave and dodge. They can show true solidarity—with one another, and with the public—by pushing forward with the newsworthy questions that they have every right to ask. 

If that means they also get roasted by the president, they can proudly show that video to their grandchildren someday.

You might remember the headlines when the story broke, back in June of 2022. More than fifty migrants were found dead inside a tractor trailer near San Antonio, having perished from the intense heat and lack of oxygen. “We’re not supposed to open up a truck and see stacks of bodies in there,” the city’s fire chief told reporters at the scene.

It took more than two years of reporting, but Elliott Woods has written the definitive account of this tragedy, in a story copublished by the Food & Environment Reporting Network and Texas Monthly. After many months of sleuthing, Woods tracked down one of the eleven survivors, Begaí Santiago Hipólito. Begaí, along with his brother Mariano, had decided to make the journey to the US from Mexico despite the misgivings of his wife, Mari. When he told her of his plans, she responded: “You could fall into the hands of bad people, and they could hurt you. Then what would I do?” 

US immigration agents failed to detect the brothers and dozens of others as they crossed the border. In short order, they were ferried by smugglers into a fetid “stash house” in southern Texas before being herded into the tractor trailer. The group included two Guatemalan kids, ages thirteen and fourteen, as well as a fifty-five-year-old construction worker from Mexico.

The trailer was supposed to have refrigeration to keep the immigrants safe, but the unit was malfunctioning. The temperature inside soared as high as a hundred and forty degrees. Woods describes the horror: “As extreme dehydration set in, they ceased sweating, their skin becoming hot to the touch. Electrolyte depletion can trigger a range of symptoms: muscle cramps, brain swelling, nausea, loss of coordination, delirium, and seizures. Then, as their body temperatures climbed above 105 degrees, their cells began to die and their organs began to fail. Their final moments before slipping out of consciousness were agonizing.”

Somehow, Begaí survived, and his wife was given a short-term visa to visit him in a US hospital. Here is how Woods described the scene when they met:

In the hallway, Mari heard Begaí’s voice before she saw him, and she recognized the words immediately: “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Begaí was reciting Psalm 91:1, which they both knew by heart. She wiped a tear from her cheek and listened for a moment. Steadying herself, she slipped into the room, where she saw Begaí with his head covered in bandages. An intricate web of wires and tubes connected his limbs to blinking machines and bags of fluid. His face was pale and sad, and he looked to Mari as if he’d aged many years. 

“Someone came to visit you,” the nurse said. “Do you know who this is?” 

Begaí looked up. “Forgive me,” were his first words to Mari. “I didn’t listen to you.” 

As Theodore Ross said in an editor’s note, “the stress and fatigue have been formidable” for Woods, “as was the fear that he wouldn’t be able to tell the story in the way it deserved. Elliott was nearly two years into his work before he found Begaí. Without him, we never get into the truck, and the story, while still powerful, would not be the same.”

We all love our news pegs, but sometimes, the best stories stem from years-old headlines. In our trigger-happy news environment, it’s great to see a reporter like Woods get the time and support to give us the details that weren’t available when the story broke.

Hat tip to Paul Farhi for his countdown of the reporters Trump has insulted. If you have a suggestion for this column, please send it to laurelsanddarts@cjr.org. We can’t acknowledge all submissions, but we will mention you if we use your idea. For more on Laurels and Darts, please click here. To receive this and other CJR newsletters in your inbox, please click here.

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