Hiccup on teen mom feature ...

Spot on.

When I was in college I did a story on a public forum where people were talking about the taking away of gay rights.

Well a nice looking female student followed an old lady shaking a Bible, and this young woman said she was a lesbian and had tried to kill herself because she hated being gay. She could not help it, but hated the pressure that society was putting on her to be straight.

Well, we got art of her, and my editor said her pic was going page one above the fold. I actually hunted her down that night to let her know. It was a public forum, so we were well within our rights to run it, but I wanted her OK first. She was fine, but I was ready to go to war to keep her photo off of page one. I did quote her in the story after she spoke at the forum. We sat and talked, open notebook and pen clicked, for a few minutes, so she knew she was probably going in the next days paper, but a quote a few inches down and a four column pic above the fold are two different things.

At the end of the day you have to remember that these are people we are writing about, and innocent ones deserve special care.

 

I can't totally agree. If the girl talks about how she copes each day with the memories,or how she deals with day-to-day life, maybe that can help some other young girl reading it who's being abused.

That said, the writer and the paper has to tread very lightly. Check. Double-check. Verify. You name it. And remember that it's the girl's story.

 

I would pursue it. There is two options. Either the uncle is still in the picture and the family is OK with it and you get her to tell you why or the uncle is banished and you turn her into what she is, the victim. You write the story as she had something bad happen to her but she is turning into a positive by excelling on the mound and loving her daughter despite how she came about. Either way it's a extremely unique story that could win awards and her side is told. People won't go crazy on her if she is painted as a victim. If she is OK with what happened, along with her family, then she should expect some backlash because it's wrong in every way.

 

I gather you have never looked at the article comments section of any newspaper anywhere.

The girl and her family, even if they say yes to the story, don't know what they're in for. The paper and the reporter know. They should protect these subjects from themselves.

 

The story doesn't serve any news value except to satisfy the prurient interests of readers and the reporter's ego.

If you run this, you need to run every story of some idiot who gets suspended from a team for drinking. You need to run something when an athlete gets in trouble at school or has a juvenile misdemeanor record.

 

No, you do not.

In no way does writing one feature bind you to writing any remotely similar feature. Esquire had a story this month on a man exonerated for a crime he did not commit. Does Esquire now have to write a feature about every man exonerated for a crime he did not commit?

I am very surprised at the general tone of these posts on a journalism message board. Makes me wonder a couple things. First, what the reaction would be on a news-side message board (although I recognize that many people here are news-siders). Second, what the reaction would be if this were a male athlete instead of a female. Third, what the reaction would have been several years ago on the same board.

I understand having sympathy/empathy for a source. But if we can't write about real people anymore, what the fuck is the point? Seriously.

 

Jenna Lane would right this story.

 

The 'teen athlete with baby' story isn't new or original, it's almost cliche.

The 'story' is that she was impregnanted by an uncle when she was 15 or 16. Really can't imagine doing a story on that, unless there's a current news angle other than high school softball; it just feels ugly and exploitive.

Different story if the girl and her family came forward to tell the story, then I wouldn't hesitate. Otherwise, why do this to them?

 

Dick, we write about real people every day. We don't have to write about every real person. It can take as much guts to step away from a story as it does to pursue a story. And why do you think the response on sj would have been different way
back when?

And for the record, youur first response involved the winning of an APSE award

 

Yeah, I think this is the context we're talking about. Willing participant. Weeks of interviewing, investigating, getting to know the people and the situation. Lots of editor involvement.

 

Before stories were so widely disseminated on the Internet and before comments came after stories. I think those things have helped make us a little gun shy (for good reasons).

 

That was just my snarky way of saying, "What a great story!"

I shouldn't have posted it. I should have realized that I would be called on the carpet for it.