Between Solomon and M*A*S*H*: Choosing sensitivity over drama at the water cooler
We like to think that every debate has a right answer and a wrong one, and that reasoned discussion will lead inevitably to the right one. Let Solomon promise to cut the baby in half, and you’ll find your answer to any conflict.
Would that life were that easy.
More often, it’s like the debate among doctors in a M*A*S*H* television episode arguing over whether to undertake a dangerous mission to assist wounded Chinese soldiers. “Lonely-at-the-top time,” Lt. Col. Henry Blake called it, before caving to admit he would approve “whatever you people decide.”
Closer to the suburbs and to modern times, the topic among Daily Herald editors turned last week to electric bicycles and scooters. The vehicles are an example of what we used to call a “water cooler story.” Back when people worked in busy offices and take breaks around the water cooler, certain stories were certain to give them something to liven the conversation. Now, we just call them “talkers,” and e-bikes certainly qualify. Bring the subject up at a Little League game or soccer match or weekend dinner party, and you’re sure to hear a litany of personal experiences about close calls and rude behaviors.
Talkers, at least this kind, tend to graduate from water coolers and dinner parties to seats of power, so we found ourselves preparing a story as the Arlington Heights Village Board was joining the ranks of suburban communities setting regulations on e-bike and scooter operation. In particular, the board was weighing complaints from neighbors around Lake Arlington that riders ignore traffic rules, eschew helmets and are, in the words of one resident, “are just getting dangerous.”
We sent photographer John Starks to check things out, and he came back with pictures that clearly portrayed the complaints. One of the images showed a helmetless young rider speeding along with no hands on the handlebars, followed by a companion riding on the wrong side of the path.
The decision to use the picture prominently with our front-page story seemed a sure attention-getter, and as Director of Visual Journalism Paul Valade said, “It perfectly shows the issue.”
But then Editor Lisa Miner raised a point of sensitivity.
“I can’t help thinking about what that boy’s parents are going to feel when they see their son plastered on the front page riding like that,” she said. “We have to consider the potential that we’re holding up a young kid to ridicule.”
We don’t identify the boy and it shows just what the problem is, came one reply. It was out in the open in a public space, came another. It may lead to an uncomfortable conversation for the kid, but that’s probably a conversation that should be had, followed yet another. And in that vein, still another editor added that maybe it would start important conversations in many other families.
Yes, Miner said. Those were all good points. But she wasn’t as quick as Lt. Col. Blake to abdicate her responsibilities. The kids were being kids. The still picture captured a mere moment when the boy's hands were off the scooter’s handlebars, suggesting behavior but with no real context.
A week later, Elk Grove police have released photos and video of more than a dozen kids on various types of bikes gleefully running a red light and rolling through traffic on a four-lane roadway. We have no problem showing those photos in today’s edition. But the kids at Lake Arlington last week weren’t doing anything illegal or nearly so dangerous. Which of us parents haven’t had experiences with our kids being kids that we would abhor but wouldn’t want spread across the front page? And, they were kids, barely adolescents. Could we not make the point some other way?
Some editors began to see Miner’s argument. Others held their ground. The discussion lasted several minutes, proving if nothing else the topic’s “talker” bona fides. Miner said she needed more time to think about it. Eventually, she found a compromise she could live with that still portrayed the problem at the center of Chris Placek’s story but didn’t hold children up to public ridicule.
We played the story in the middle of the front page, with a different picture of a boy riding along the path as the main image. It was all there, the fears and frustrations from the neighborhood, the issues in other towns, the actions Arlington Heights and others are taking. Perhaps the presentation was not as dramatic as some other Solomon would have chosen, but the message still resounded through both the pictures and the story.
Hopefully, it still stirred those uncomfortable conversations between parents and children throughout the suburbs — even if it did prioritize sensitivity over drama.
• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His new book “Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is available at eckhartzpress.com.