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The ‘particularly vicious blogger’ in the Trib today?
By Betsy Richter | 10:10 pm(Update: As Nick Budnick correctly points out in my comments below, the piece in the Trib was actually an excerpt from the book itself, and not a companion sidebar written by Budnick. So he’s not the one who labeled me ‘particularly vicious – that’d be Rene Denfield herself. Nick, I apologize for the error and misattribution – thanks for being so gracious when you pointed it out.)
Uh, that would be me.
Nick Budnick Rene Denfield had this to say after excerpting two sentences from a long blog post I wrote in 2004 about Jessica Kate Williams in an excerpt from her book in today’s Portland Tribune:
In the weeks after the murder, a remarkable number of people blamed Becky and Sam Williams for what happened. “Where were you when your child was wandering the streets with her murderers?” asked one particularly vicious blogger. The writer stated the murder was “yet one more example of our ‘nobody’s home’ syndrome at work.”
The sidebar pulling in this observation was a companion piece to Nick’s front page story about former Oregonian author Rene Denfield, who has recently published a book about street kids and violence that makes several interesting conclusions about just who’s on the streets, and what we do to perpetuate the problem.
The article – Street life — and death – has already generated much conversation on the Trib site, along with a link to a rebuttal from blogger, minister and homeless youth advocate Chuck Currie, who says he was horribly misquoted in the piece (he’d also been characterized casting blame on the Williams family.)
Was I misquoted? As you’ll see, I did say those two sentences referenced above. Do I wish I’d been a little gentler? Yep – and in fact, I said so myself a day later in the post itself.
But Budnick Denfield totally missed the larger context, thanks in part to some bad links leading back to dead pages on my old blog (I’ve since corrected the problem) that reference other examples of just how our media jumps on easy parental grief instead of a deeper examination of just why and how our kids get put in harm’s way. (Ironically enough, today’s package seeks to remedy the very situation I was ranting about – two years after Williams’ death.)
I wish he’d she’d bothered to contact me to get a little background after doing his Google search that landed her on one single page of my blog. I wish he’d she’d have bothered to capture my own concerns about being too hard on the family before throwing out that ‘particularly vicious’ part.
Most of all, I wish I’d gotten the chance to tell her just why I was so caustic at the time – and why I never got an opportunity to tone it down later. You see, four days after this post was written, my boyfriend at the time lost his adult son in Afghanistan. I got sucked in myself into the maelstrom of a public grieving process for yet another lost child; I was the one to argue with at least one news desk here in town to stay away from the cemetery – the family wanted to be left alone at the burial service & didn’t want their grief put on display.
My objection then – and now – was in the way the family’s grief was put on display, was dramatized, became the focal point of the story. My problem then – and now – is in our collective willingness to wallow in the easy sentimentality instead of doing the hard work necessary to prevent another child’s loss.
I have two kids myself. I don’t ever want to have to look in a mirror and know that their loss was something I could have prevented. I still think state senator Margaret Carter said the right thing. So did Joe’s father.
And if that makes me ‘vicious’, well – then so be it.
Topics: I'm *Serious* Here | 6 Comments »
January 26th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Don’t apologize. The big photo glamorizing the graffiti pretty much says it all. As much as I like the Trib, it is not above sensationalizing murder to get readers. The months and months of “Inside the Mind of Ward Weaver” was cr*p, and so is this.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
I don’t want to come off as defending that reporter (because not contacting you was just not ok or good journalism, as far as I can see) but it is possible that he included more information/context in his originally story that was cut out (because of space concerns, typically) by an editor after he turned it in. When I worked at The O, a couple reporters I knew had “before and after” versions of their stories taped up to their filing cabinets – shining examples of what copy editors can do to a once-insightful (or at least balanced) story.
Again, I’m not defending or justifying; just saying it’s possible he was more balanced to start out with.
January 27th, 2007 at 6:06 am
My problem then – and now – is in our collective willingness to wallow in the easy sentimentality instead of doing the hard work necessary to prevent another child’s loss.
Yes, this. It’s one of my real hot-button issues and I’m glad you spoke your piece.
And no, you weren’t vicious; you weren’t even snarky.
February 1st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Well, at least you knew what you meant — and that’s all that should count.
February 3rd, 2007 at 3:47 am
Betsy,
What your post attributes to a “sidebar” by me was actually an excerpt from the book by Rene Denfeld. That’s why what you linked to began with the words:
‘The following is an excerpt from “All God’s Children: Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families” by Rene Denfeld.’
I never wrote a single word about you or your blog– nor Chuck Currie, for that matter. My name appears elsewhere in the package because I interviewed Denfeld and wrote a sidebar based on interviews with a couple of social service providers and cops.
BTW, I am a fan of MWIL — one of my favorite blog names — and had been meaning to drop you a line to that effect months ago.
February 4th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
So you all have actually read the book, right? And not just the excerpts or the reviews? (I posted a review on my blog today, fyi.) It’s an outstanding book, well-researched and well-written. Denfeld is the first author to fully delve into this topic so I give her kudos for that.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t think the article in the Trib, or in today’s Oregonian (2/4/07) did anything to “glamorize” the problem or the book. And the book doesn’t make the Thantos family, or any of the other people involved, look glamorous or enticing. It’s a book that makes you want to throw up after you read it. It’s brutal. The smaller details and the bigger picture are terrifying. I think it’s important we talk about the problem — which is a huge problem, are we in agreement on that? — and not attack Denfeld.
Your saying, “Do I wish I’d been a little gentler? Yep – and in fact, I said so myself a day later in the post itself…” is not the same as saying, “I was wrong to say this,” and yanking the post. So do you think you were wrong?