The Boy Who Wouldn't Die... Amazing piece in SI about Rae Carruth's son

I read both pieces. Thanks for posting the earlier one from the News Observer.

The two stories were worlds apart - and a perfect example of the difference between newspaper style and magazine style.

The subject, I thought, was absolutely worthy of magazine treatment. The SI version did a great job of taking the reader into the kid's mother's and grandmother's lives. Over all, it's much deeper and more detailed.

That said, the opening of the SI story made me cringe. It tried WAY too hard to be something grand. There was also a weird part that quoted The Denver Post when the writer could have found a way to get the similar (or even better) information via his own reporting.

Great stuff, though. And a perfect kicker.

 

Another craft/turf question for pieces like this: how much of the "original reporting" from a local news organization does the next writer use?

 

I can speak only for myself, Az, but I would say very little. I pretty much steal the idea and the names of the sources and that's it. I use the information to get my own information.

This isn't a knock on my fellow reporters, but they're not always right. I stole one story from a little blurb off CNN which had the first and last name of one of the people involved incorrect. That made him a lot harder to track down. I was looking for someone who didn't exist.

 

Better question: How much does he/she credit?

I notice that The New Yorker is very comprehensive in crediting prior reporting. Others either are not, or do what TypeFitter does: Just re-confirm it all.

 

Perhaps a bit of a sidebar but I've always wondered, do any of you ever do stories where you have been influenced by an SJ thread?

 

There was one posted a few weeks back about a football player who died in a semi pro league that gave credit to a SJ thread.

 

RE: SI's website policy. I'm not sure that's entirely true. I read the story on Daron Roberts on the site yesterday afternoon - one of a few stories they featured at the top of the page that day - and when I started to flip through my copy of the magazine last night ... there it was!

And to get back on topic: the Carruth story is fantastic. Cannot wait to finish it on the commute home tonight.

 

Journalists in Texas had been reporting various pieces of the Cameron Todd Willingham case, and the political maneuvering around it, for years. It took the New Yorker to put it together and make it a national story.

 

I don't think you missed it. I was left wondering about the other sentences, too.

Wasn't too far into it yesterday when it hit me that this was turning into one hell of a piece.

 

Well, I read the piece. I wasn't crazy about the first few paragraphs or the last few paragraphs. But the rest was gold. Thomas Lake outdid himself in the section recreating how the plan was devised. This would make for one hell of a movie.

The piece was distinctly different from Elizabeth Leland's feature three years ago. That focused only on Saundra and Chancellor Lee Adams. I couldn't stomach much of the Rae Carruth trial details and was young enough not to feel compelled to stay informed, so I didn't know much about this story. I didn't know Carruth appealed for custody. I didn't know Carruth had never shown remorse for Cherica Adams' death. I never knew that he had impregnated two other women first.

Leland's feature was what The Charlotte Observer needed: an update on two characters from a well-documented story. The newspaper's core readers know the full story and don't need it rehashed in the gory details. It suited its purpose. But it wasn't the definitive takeout that Lake provided. And, frankly, it wasn't as good as Lake's feature, wasn't as successful even by its lesser ambitions.

 

I did not put words in your mouth. I asked you a question.

There's a huge difference.