POKIN AROUND: To name or not to name, that is the question
Since then, Megan's story has exploded nationally and, now, internationally. On Thursday, the story was the subject of a news account in the New York Times. Parents Ron and Tina Meier have been on CNN, the "Today" show, "Good Morning America."
This week a friend - a high school French teacher - told me the story appeared (in French) in the Geneva Tribune, as in Switzerland. Her students read it as a classroom exercise.More than anything else, it is a sad story.
Megan killed herself not knowing that the boy who was mean to her on MySpace, Josh Evans, never existed. She did not know that a woman down the street - as well as a temporary employee, now 19, who worked for that woman - had made up Josh.
Many of you were grateful we ran the story. Many of you were outraged at the family down the street. Some of you were outraged at law enforcement because, thus far, no one has been charged with a crime. Some of you were outraged at us for not naming the family down the street.
Obviously, there's been no shortage of outrage.
I saw a professor comment online that the outrage and the cyberspace vigilantism directed at the family down the street could be attributed to a social need to curb outrageous behavior - especially when controls like prosecution don't seem to work. That makes sense to me.
Our decision to not name has prompted discussion in the blogosphere and in journalism circles. I have been interviewed several times, often questioned about our decision to not name.
Let me explain whom I mean when I say "our" decision.
It's me and Dave Bundy, the editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis. In addition, Dave had our attorney, Marvin Lindmark, review the story.
I went into the story thinking we would name the woman down the street. I think that's a good starting point for all reporters. Name names. Unless there's a compelling reason not to.
Before I go any further, I'll note that there already were two big factors weighing on the scales to not name the family. This newspaper, and most media outlets, generally does not name "suspects." In this case, no one had been arrested. No one had been charged. And the family down the street had not been sued. In addition, it was not clear who had sent the hateful messages.
Nevertheless, I still thought the essential elements of the story warranted having the woman's name published.
But in the actual writing I ran into a compelling reason not to. There was no way to name the mother without identifying her 13-year-old daughter. There was nothing in my bag of writing tricks to get around that.
It might seem obvious to you that, of course, if you name the mother, you name the daughter. But it's not always so. Sometimes daughters and mothers have different last names. Not here.
And it's not just that the woman had a 13-year-old daughter.
A law professor wrote about our decision in the Los Angeles Times. He stated, "Simply because they had a child, the alleged perpetrators were given the benefit of anonymity."
Not so. Please read the story as it appeared in this newspaper.
The daughter was involved in the hoax. She is what you might consider a "suspect." In fact, she is a juvenile suspect. Only in rare exceptions do most media outlets name juvenile suspects.
So do we, in effect, name a 13-year-old girl who might have been at or near the keyboard when "Josh Evans" typed that fateful message, "The world would be a better place without you."
Do we name a 13-year-old in a case where - so far - two separate police agencies, one of them the FBI, have decided no law was broken?
Dave and I knew the story would generate outrage. Did we want to take a big step toward directing it at a 13-year-old girl?
No. Children do not choose their parents.
We made a judgment call. Other media outlets have decided to name the family. I respect that. We have a free press.
Yet, bloggers and others have treated our decision as a flash point in a culture war. In this corner: The blogosphere, where if you know something, or think you just might possibly know something, you sling it out there. And in this corner: the old, stodgy and overly cautious world of newspapers.
If the only turf you can lay claim to in reporting and commenting on the news is publishing a name that someone else chose not to, I understand why you might declare war.
Dave and I have been called cowards. I'm a "complete Lee butt kisser. .. If you were a real journalist, you'd fight like hell to name the people who did this to an innocent girl."
Molly Browne of New Orleans wrote, "Thanks for killing journalism."
And today, Friday, someone wanted to post this thoughtful comment: "Someone should convince the people who work at this newspaper to commit suicide for being such cowards."
First of all. I am a real journalist. You know my name. You see my picture. Those of you in St. Charles County know a bit about my family. If I were a composite, do you think I'd pick "Pokin"?
I believe all of that makes me more connected to my words than, let's say, Spartacus, who thinks I'm a butt kisser. What I've observed in Megan's death and in the story's aftermath is that people need to be far more connected to their words.
We also have been criticized for providing enough information in our story so people could quickly figure out the name.
We had three options. Run the story with the name. Run the story without the name. Or simply not do the story.
Once we made our choice, it was not an option to write a story about real people and a real tragedy and omit certain details, or muddy them up, to throw people off the track. That's not good journalism and it's not good writing.
We have no control over what others did to follow up our story.
To me, the criticism runs like this: How dare the Journal publish a story that allowed us to figure out the name, which we then put on our blog, along with the address, and we then posted comments about how the people down the street should be beaten and killed. Shame on the Journal!
I wrote a story for the Suburban Journals of St. Charles County. I wrote a story that - based on my 30 years of reporting and my 54 years of life - was fair, accurate, responsible and compelling.
I am puzzled by a comment posted on the Romenesko site at Poynteronline, which is read by journalists across the nation.
"Every day newspaper journalism as we know it gets one step closer to death, as readers turn to blogs and TV and other media for information. This wimp of an editor, who doesn't have the guts to name the wrongdoers involved, has just hastened our eventual demise by at least another week or two. If a newspaper won't print the whole story, what's the point of reading at all?"
Let's review.
I sat down with two people in grief, Ron and Tina Meier, and then told the story of their daughter's death. That story has been read across this nation, in various versions, and is now being read throughout the world. Local, state and federal officials, in response, are looking at how laws can be changed, while respecting free speech rights, to lessen the dangers of cyberspace.
In countless classrooms and kitchens the story has opened conversations and provided powerful teaching moments for parents and children.
Somehow I don't see that as our "eventual demise," at least not in my little corner of the world of journalism.
