At least two people taking part on an online “chat” with Journal-Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson asked him how it felt to be present when Brandy, one of the mothers he was profiling, relapsed and started smoking crack.
But Stephenson wasn’t present. Rather he used an interview with Brandy, in which she even re-enacted what happened, to write what would become the lead for this story.
Similarly, a scene in the hospital when Denice, a child of the other mother profiled, was born also is based on interviews and records.
Whether this now-common technique belongs in journalism at all is an interesting question, but not for this Blog. Stephenson prominently disclosed how he wrote these scenes in a sidebar for the series. With hindsight, it seems, it wasn’t prominent enough, but I don’t think the reporter can be blamed for that.
A much more serious problem is a third recreated scene. This time, Stephenson offers no explanation for how he “knows” what happened. The scene appears to be pure speculation in the service of Stephenson’s “master narrative” – the erroneous claim that an overwhelming desire to reunify families in the name of “parents rights” blinds the system to the “best interests” of children.
That thesis appears throughout the series but it is most prominent in a sidebar to part one. The headline sums up Stephenson’s master narrative, declaring as fact that “Parents rights trump children’s rights.”
The part that appears to be pure speculation involves a case Stephenson already reported on in detail months before. This was a case in which the family had been reunified and, after several months caseworkers were unaware of any problems. The question was whether to continue monitoring the family.
Everyone except the parents’ lawyers said the monitoring should continue – and that everyone included the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.
But the parents lawyers argued that the parents had done everything asked of them, no one had any evidence of ongoing abuse and therefore supervision should end. The judge agreed.
Two weeks later, one of the twins, referred to in court records as E.G., suffered a severe injury caused by shaken baby syndrome. Only then was it discovered that the child also had suffered many, many other very serious injuries, some of them almost certainly while the family was under supervision.
In his first story about this case, several months ago, Stephenson’s “master narrative” emerges when we writes:
A Journal Sentinel investigation of [the parents’] history, chronicled in the parents' criminal files and in the victim's children court files, raises questions of whether a strong social and legal bias toward reuniting children with their parents blinded those who, on Jan. 6, might have rescued E.G. from his suffering and protected him from the dangers to come. [Emphasis added].
(“Raises questions” is the standard euphemism for “this is what I, the reporter, think, but I’m not allowed to say it.)
The story also includes this:
“The mother lifted one of the boys from their stroller and hugged him in front of the judge. She did not pick up the other.”
Stephenson then reveals that it was the twin who was not picked up who had suffered all those injuries.
In this story, Stephenson does not suggest that anyone should have been suspicious at that very moment, without benefit of hindsight.
But in the sidebar that ran on Sunday, Stephenson told the story differently. He told it in a way that got around the key problem he had in using the case to bolster his master narrative – the fact that BMCW wanted to continue supervision.
This time he embellishes the scene, concluding his story with this paragraph:
It is not clear how many of the injuries the 16-month-old had already endured as he sat tucked in a stroller in [Judge] Yamahiro's courtroom, surrounded by child welfare experts who, as they debated his parents' rights, did not notice the agony E.G. was suffering. [Emphasis added].
Although I’m sure the twins were in the courtroom that day, there is nothing to indicate that Croker Stephenson was. His earlier, much more extensive story on the case makes no mention of his being in attendance (and if he was it would mean he didn’t notice the agony either – since it is nowhere mentioned in that first story).
The idea that the child’s agony was readily apparent, if not for everyone being distracted by their fanatical devotion to “parents’ rights,” is pure speculation. Indeed, it would mean that not only the judge the parents lawyers and BMCW were oblivious to the suffering, but also the prosecutor and the child’s own guardian ad litem – who came from the same office that gave Stephenson the “parents rights trump children’s rights” quote that became the headline on the story.
In fact, it appears that the twins’ parents were manipulative as well as brutal. Odds are, were the suffering truly apparent, they would have come up with some excuse to leave that child home.
Of course I’m just speculating. But I’m an advocate. I’m allowed to do that, and I’m disclosing that fact.
Reporters are not supposed to speculate in news stories. And they’re certainly not supposed to pass their speculation off as fact.
But Stephenson wasn’t going for facts – he was going for visceral response – closing the story that lays out his parents rights vs. children’s rights thesis with an image of professionals so fanatical about “parents rights” that they were willfully blind to obvious pain.
That comes perilously close to something far worse than recreating a scene. It comes awfully close to making stuff up.
Oh, wait. Let me put that another way: The stories raise questions about whether the reporter made stuff up.
Oh, wait. Let me put that another way: The stories raise questions about whether the reporter made stuff up.
Actual date of post: Sept. 22, 2010
