An Editor Reflects on Telling the Toughest Stories

There are all kinds of violence. War, genocide. Murder. Domestic Violence. Natural disasters. Fires. Accidents. Brutality. Crimes of every magnitude. Plain old stupidity. Then there is the violence of the soul – racism, intolerance, bigotry.

And if you’re a professional journalist, it is unlikely that you will spend your career without being exposed to more than one. I think each of us carries in a special place the memories of stories that touched us deeply. Some of those stories resulted in close calls. Some were so close that being a few feet away could have meant a different outcome.

I deeply admire those journalists around the world who place themselves in harm’s way every day because there are important stories to tell. When we are talking about mortal and moral issues, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being current examples, there’s nothing more irritating than to hear an editor say, “That story has been done.” Well, here’s a news flash: All stories have been done. But we continue to cover the wars as a moral obligation, as an examination of human tragedy of the first order, of the need to understand the courage and sacrifice that we ask others to have and to suffer in our names. 

I try to make the same point about the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Associated Press recently did a takeout on the 59 people who died in the desert of Arizona in July, the second-biggest number since the Pima County coroner started to keep the record. The body bags are stacked floor to ceiling, and an air-conditioned truck has been brought in as backup.

Amid all the clamor, all the political bullshit, all the hatred being vented in their direction, 59 people – 59 human beings – baked to death in the desert in one month, trying to seek a better life. That’s a tragedy. One man we interviewed talked about passing the body of a fellow traveler, trying not to look too closely, because, after all, there’s nothing to be done in the desert. You live or you die. And that’s quite beyond the noise of the debate.

The Dart Society joined with the Nieman Foundation last year in a workshop entitled “Aftermath: Journalism, Storytelling, and the Impact of Violence and Tragedy.” Just the title of the workshop made me think of Jim Sheeler’s work on Final Salute, and other stories that he did on the impact of the war on the homefront and Kevin Vaughan’s  work on The Crossing,  recounting the impact of a 1961 bus crash that killed 20 children near Greeley, Colorado. Each one, while very different, would be about as stellar an example of storytelling around the impact of violence and tragedy that you could find.

As Jim pursued his war stories, he did so with empathy and compassion, with the utmost respect for sacrifice and suffering, and he did so with just an unbelievable determination to tell the stories fully and truthfully, no matter what that took.  And believe me, I worried about how hard he was pushing himself more than once.

But he did it.

What comes from the heart goes to the heart, and that is the enduring power of Jim’s work.

He makes himself understand, and then he makes his readers understand. His  power in delivering emotion is singular and unique. And that’s because he absorbs it and understands it before he delivers.

There is another side to Jim’s work that is equally well known in certain circles: He is an obituary writer revered nationally by others in that craft.

If you’ve ever read any of those stories, or ever heard Jim speak about them, you know that Jim went to great lengths to tell these wonderful, poignant life stories. While many reporters would be content to get the standard quote — “She was a good old girl and we’re going to miss her” – Jim perservered until he felt that he had the true story of who the person was. Of course, in some cases, I think the survivors just wanted to go to bed or something and went ahead spilled the beans.

Faulkner said – at least I think it was Faulkner –  “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” Never has that been more true than when you’re reading a 30-something part Kevin Vaughan serial about something that happened almost 50 years ago.

I jest.

“The Crossing” was a magnificent piece of journalism.  It was both literary and cinematic in the way that it showed how tragedy keeps cartwheeling  through time and space. This was a 1961 school bus accident that killed 20 children. Obviously it was a cataclysmic event in this little farming community outside of Greeley. But it wasn’t a question of burying the dead, grieving and then moving on. Through an amazing reporting effort and superb story-telling,  Kevin wrote beautifully about how that long-ago tragedy manifests itself to this very day. That was one of the most amazing publishing experiences I’ve ever seen. A whole community – one that had been splintered for decades – grew together around the series.

It was was also my good fortune to work with Tina Griego and Mike Littwin. I was a metro columnist for 12 years, so getting to be their editor meant that I was still, at least vicariously, in the game. 

Tina was at the Rocky when I got there and then she left to go to the [Denver] Post. I think that was just a coincidence…But anyway, eventually we tried to get her to come back to the Rocky. It was like a spy intrigue, meeting in secret locales far away downtown – we all had code names. I was known as “the bald one.” We won her back. 

A lot of people don’t know this about Mike. But he works long hours. In fact, the later it gets, the harder he works. The later it gets, the harder he works. He looks at deadlines like living with fire. And believe me, he’s often had his eyebrows singed.

But it was just a great, great pleasure to work with Mike and Tina on their columns. They are both courageous and compassionate and wonderful story-tellers. 

A little bio: I grew up in the South when the Civil Rights Movement was in full bloom. It was one thing that made me want to become a journalist.  The train of justice and righteousness was leaving the station. You were either on board or you weren’t. There was nothing ambiguous about those days. And I’m glad that I got to come along at a time of moral clarity, that I had the opportunity to decide and to participate. It really has informed my work to this day. We should pursue social justice and fairness with courage and good cheer.    

And I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite paragraphs of all of literature: 

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”*

 And, obviously, in this case some of the words are yours.