Why we didn't post 9-1-1 tape

Eight editors in a room. A riveting, but very disturbing tape of the 9-1-1 call from the Hoffman Estates murder scene. The question: Do we put it on the Web for all to hear? Here are summaries of arguments made. The quotes are not precise, nor do they appear in the order in which various arguments were presented; I was not taking notes.

"If we edit the tape to the minute or so when D'Andre Howard is talking to the dispatcher, we hear real news. It is not just prurient. You hear him describing what has happened and we haven't heard it in that way before."

"It's too disturbing. What purpose does it serve to present the audio that we couldn't serve by just describing the tape and reporting selected quotes from it?"

"It's going to be available on every other local Web site and radio and TV, so we might as well offer it, too. More important, it shows in a vivid way the emotion and drama of what happened in that house, and our job is to show people reality. We do that every day in the stories we print in the paper and online. This is just another form of doing that."

"Our job is to be selective about the details we present. Pictures of the bloody crime scene would also depict the reality of the crime, but we wouldn't print those."

"Audio is not the same as graphic crime-scene pictures."

"When you listen to the tape, you hear things that are impossible to describe in print. You hear the calm professionalism of the dispatcher trying to keep the suspect and his fiancee on the line. You hear the tone of their voices, their crying and it gives you a different picture than what you would get otherwise."

"I had always pictured the suspect as brutal and angry. When I hear his voice, he sounds like a little kid."

"At one point, the dispatcher asks about the father, and the caller says, 'He's dead.' But a simple transcript will never convey the way the words are drawn out and the emotion behind them."

"We have to think of the family. It's too invasive. We've earned a reputation for being more sensitive in cases like this, even when we know the competition will have something. If we put this online, that all goes out the window."

"It's not our job to decide what's disturbing to each individual. We should put up a stern warning and then let people decide for themselves if they want to hear it."

There was a time in newspapering when these decisions were easy. It was common in the '30s, '40s, '50s and even '60s to see brutally battered victims of crime, war or natural disaster on the front pages. That's not so anymore.

Ultimately in this case, the Daily Herald, even though we'd earlier filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the 9-1-1 audio, decided against putting any portion of it online, and we were virtually alone among Chicago media in that choice. We carried transcripted excerpts online and in print, but not the audio.

We've made similar decisions in the past. Some readers praised our discretion and thanked us for it. Some were angry we took away a decision they felt was theirs, not ours, to make. We'd like to hear your reaction this time. Comment below or, if you'd like your responses published in the print edition, write us at opinion@dailyherald.com and include your full name, town and phone number.

I heartily agree it's our job to depict the harshness, the vivid reality of dramatic events in our communities. It is also our job to portray reality responsibly and sensitively. We don't line up bus tours to tragedy and offer to drive people through the raw mayhem. We don't just throw images out on your breakfast table and ask you to sort through them.

The eight editors in Editor John Lampinen's office Tuesday afternoon were sincere and sullen. They had just heard something that would shake up any reasonable human being. Then, they each tried dispassionately to determine what was in the best interest of their audience, their community. They made their several cases. They did their jobs. Well. And now they move on to do their jobs again today.