THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610190015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: 85 lines
Three men known well in their communities died within the last two weeks - Ian M. Shipley Jr., Chesapeake police chief; Earl Bass, chief of the Nansemond Indian tribe; and Claiborne A. Havens, former Smithfield police chief.
Three community leaders, three ``chiefs.'' But there was no similarity in the handling of news stories about their deaths.
Ian Shipley's death was the subject of two front-page stories, the day after his death on Oct. 6 and the next day. That was certainly appropriate. Shipley was the current police chief of Chesapeake and his unexpected death at the age of 55 stunned the department and the city.
Earl Bass died on Saturday, Oct. 12. A paid obituary ran Monday but The Pilot didn't run a news story for another day; it was on Tuesday's MetroNews front and recounted the chief's long, rich life as a tribal leader. On Wednesday, two color photos on the Metro front paid another respectful ``farewell to the chief.''
Then were was the news story of Claiborne Havens' death. It appeared inside Monday's Metro-News section - and my phone has been ringing about it ever since. Neither its placement nor accuracy were disputed. What provoked anger and hurt were five paragraphs detailing controversies that led to Havens' resignation as police chief in 1992.
``It was in very poor taste,'' said one woman. ``It's not fair to the family; the family is grieving. It's hurt the whole community. He did so many positive things.''
Positive things were mentioned - honors and citations for his police work, his role in service organizations and his church, and a quote from the current police chief about Havens' community-minded spirit.
But there was also plenty of detail, too much, about the controversial side of Havens' law-enforcement career. And that didn't go down well with friends and others in the community. The story was ``disrespectful to someone who's no longer here to defend himself,'' said J. Warren Moore of Smithfield.
``It's just a shame to take a small segment out of his career and not mention the good he did, especially when he's now deceased,'' said Shirley Bonnewell of Suffolk.
Betty Wallis of Chesapeake attended Havens' funeral on Thursday and estimated that well over 200 people paid tribute to the man. A photo of the gathering ran in Friday's MetroNews section. Of Monday's news story, she said, ``It sounds like someone had a personal vendetta against him.''
Actually, reporter Cindy Clayton didn't know Havens and had never written about him before. She was the night reporter on Sunday and, assigned to write about his death, went through the usual paces: consulting the newspaper's story files and calling people who knew him. Making contact proved difficult that night. Hence, much of the information came from the files, rather than friends.
This is not a new problem. Public editors have written about the ``final respect'' issue for years. Namely, when someone dies, how much or how little do you write about the controversial aspects of his or her life?
Readers want the newspaper to ``suspend its normal news instinct when it comes to obituaries,'' wrote Art Nauman, ombudsman at The Sacramento Bee, in 1983. ``Obituaries, they feel, ought to be a person's final send-off from this earth, a positive, respectful statement generally cleansed of negative information from the deceased's past.''
At the Pilot, as at many newspapers, there's a difference between an obituary and a news story about someone's death. Obituaries are written and paid for by the family or the funeral home. They may use terms like she ``passed away in peacefulness, surrounded by loved ones'' or ``he went to be with the Lord.'' They can include, or omit, any details about the person's life that the family wishes.
But an obit-news story is something else, and the paper does have a commitment to report the basic facts about a person's life. Still, such reporting can be done with balance and sensitivity. Suffolk editor John Pruitt feels balance was missing in this case.
``Havens' career spanned a lot of years,'' he said. ``Our clips focused on the last controversial few he was chief and largely ignored what he's done since retirement. We didn't see him through community eyes, I'm convinced.''
Another death in the community this week was a reminder that The Pilot can handle story-obits in a way that brings people's lives closer to us. I'm referring to the coverage of local radio DJ Carol Taylor, who died of cancer Sunday at 32.
Writer Mike D'Orso's remembrance of Taylor, in Thursday's Daily Break, touched a number of readers. About a half-dozen called in to thank us for running the story and to admit they shed tears reading it. Taylor's ``multi-layered legacy'' will live on, the headline said. A person can't ask for much more.
MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net by CNB