A line between compassion and journalism
While working on several stories this summer, I have had to pause and ask myself:
- What are my intentions in writing this story?
- Am I emotionally invested in this story?
- If so, is it hindering my storytelling?
- How can I tell this story the most objectively?
One such instance was while working on a veterans and PTSD project with health reporter Jaclyn Cosgrove and fellow intern Darryl Golden. We took an entire work day to travel to James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena, where we interviewed incarcerated veterans about their mental health and experiences returning home from war.
I’m not going to lie. I was a little apprehensive about visiting the prison. I knew it would be a great experience and would expand my comfort zone as a reporter, but being in a room with 50 inmates who had committed violent crimes put me a little on edge. After sitting through the center’s veterans club meeting, I easily saw that the veterans were ordinary people, but had made poor life choices. They had experienced the horrors of war, they felt sorry for the crimes they committed and they missed their families. By the end of our interviews, I had forgotten that we were talking to inmates at a prison.
My part of the project was to write a story about a flag afghan project the veterans club started in 2007. The veterans crochet flag afghans for other veterans and families of fallen service members. I wanted my story to embody the caring nature of the veterans, which I had experienced during my visit. I had heard about their troubles and wanted to present their project in the best light possible. After I finished writing the story, I realized I never mentioned why the men were in prison. Without even thinking, I left out their charges. It was as if I was empathizing with the veterans. I saw that they were truly sorry for the crimes they committed and didn’t want the horrible nature of the crimes, many of them murder, to taint the story.
Eric Fowler, an inmate and member of the veteran's club at James Crabtree Correctional Center, holds up a gold star American flag afghan. -Photo by Darryl Golden
Here’s the final story: James Crabtree Correctional Center incarcerated veterans honor other veterans and families of fallen service members
This summer, I’ve learned that sometimes as a reporter, I’m going to feel for sources, situations and issues. It’s my duty to find the middle ground. Compassion can exist in journalism.
Nicholas Kristof is a prime example of a journalist who shows compassion through his work. Read or listen to Krista Tippett’s interview with Kristof as he talks about compassion and journalism on Tippett’s show On Being.
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My best friend is also a young journalist who sometimes finds herself reporting about worlds she never knew existed. From her tales, I know that it can be hard to separate yourself from the story, no matter how wonderful or horrifying the story is. It speaks to your great commitment to sharing the stories of others that you were able to put aside your uneasy feelings and immerse yourself in an unfamiliar world. I applaud you for your open mind wholeheartedly. Because of the good people on the outside who have been able to open their hearts to the idea of inmates as charitable people, this beautiful project can continue. Your story in the Daily Oklahoman moved me so much, and I’m glad that you were able to empathize with these gentlemen to such a great extent. But I have one request – rather than thinking of the JCCC inmates as “having committed” crimes, think of them as “having been convicted.” Hopefully, our justice system has functioned as well as we would like, and the two mean the same thing. But, unfortunately, sometimes they do not. Most of the time, we only have the convicted person’s word to go on. Eric Fowler is my father, and he has always said that he is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. I only have his word. We all hope that people are not wrongly convicted, but juries are made up of human beings, and human beings are not perfect. Juries and inmates alike are capable of mistakes. A proclamation of one’s innocence is not generally a good cause for reasonable doubt, but for me, and I’m sure for the families of other inmates, the distinction between “this person did this crime,” and “this person was convicted of this crime” feels like a big difference in the way my father is seen by others. Some would surely call this nitpicking, and maybe it is. But it’s compassionate nitpicking, right? Keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing the JCCC Veteran’s Club with so many people.