THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507160035
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Editor's Notebook
SOURCE: Cole C. Campbell, Editor
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
News is often harsh, because life is often harsh. But none of us can afford to ignore hard realities if we are to respond effectively as individuals and as a community.
That is why we are publishing today and Monday a special report, prepared by staff writer Mike Mather and staff photographer Lawrence Jacksonon, on the Witchduck Inn quadruple homicide.
The Virginia Beach Police Department gave Mather and Jackson unfettered access to a homicide investigation, recognizing the large public stake in educating citizens about crime and what it takes to fight it.
The department stipulated that nothing from this arrangement would be published until the perpetrators were tried. The second of two trials ended last week.
The report uses specific details to convey the magnitude of the crime and the investigation. We included one explicit crime scene photo, inside the paper, because it forms the emotional center of this report - the horror inflicted by the callous taking of human life.
We made this decision after considerable review and discussion among reporters, photographers and editors. We know the photo will offend some readers even as it enlightens others. We know its publication will intrude into the private realm of the victims' families. The families - whom we spoke with in advance - were divided. One family said publishing the photo was important to convey the enormity of the crime; the other said it would be unsettling.
We must weigh competing values every day; this weighing was especially hard in this case. Our job, in the end, is to publish the news in a context that makes it meaningful. When we looked at the report without this photo included, the package lost a crucial sense of reality.
A lot is at stake as the rate of murders, especially murders by strangers, increases. The current edition of The Atlantic Monthly notes that ``stranger murders'' have become four times as common as family killings, with the chances of getting away with it greater than 80 percent.
``We experience the crime wave not as separate moments in time but as one long descending night,'' author Adam Walinsky writes. ``A loved one lost echoes in the heart for decades. Every working police officer knows the murder scene: the shocked family and neighbors, too numb yet to grieve; fear and desolation spreading to the street, the workplace, the school, the home, creating an invisible but indelible network of anguish and loss.''
With ``more than 20,000 such scenes every year for more than a decade,'' that network must reach beyond those immediately touched if we hope to stop the killing. Two citizen initiatives debut in today's edition
Today's paper also includes more pleasant work of wide impact. Today on A1 we introduce our citizen-centered coverage of the General Assembly elections, while on the Metro News front we invite you to participate in a series of conversations about values and education.
The General Assembly campaign overage begins with a story about the issues that many citizens believe should dominate political discussion - especially education and the future facing our children.
These issues arose in five community conversations with 62 Virginians in Norfolk, Roanoke, Christiansburg and Northern Virginia.
As staff writer Warren Fiske reports:
``The conversations bore little resemblance to much of the high-volume debate that has dominated Richmond in recent years. The citizens had no interest in discussing perennial hot-button topics such as abortion rights, gun control and school prayer.''
Instead, they care about education, taxes, partisanship and jobs.
During the fall campaign, we will keep these citizens' issues before the legislative candidates. If you are part of a nonpartisan civic group or citizen organization and would like to discuss these or other issues, please call Tony Germanotta of our Public Life Team at 436-6389 or write him at 921 N. Battlefield Blvd., Chesapeake, VA 23320. Or send e-mail to publife(AT)infi.net.
Meanwhile, we also are working with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Community Networking Association to engage citizens in deliberation on education issues for seven weeks this fall, beginning in October. We want to train volunteer moderators next month, so we're getting the word out now.
We want to involve a cross-section of citizens - parents, students, educators, business people and others - in discussing the community's role in educating its children. Participants will meet in groups of 10 to 12 for seven weekly study sessions.
We are not interested in advancing partisan positions or specific proposals, only in sustaining community dialogue.
For more information, call Infoline at 640-5555 and press 3535. Please state your name, hometown, phone number and the best time to reach you. by CNB