Americas Best Newspaper Writing: Crimes and Courts
by Keegan Calligar
According to the book, America’s Best Newspaper Writing, articles on crimes “can be exaggerated and sensationalized, attracting readers in the quest for larger profits. They can fuel an irrational fear of crime, distorting the way governments use their resources. Jail cells suddenly become more important than schoolrooms.” Journalists Barry Siegel, Steve Friess, Marc Lacey, Andy Newman and Annie Correal avoid such pitfalls, and prove that excellent crime reporting includes a balance of drama and facts.
Siegel’s piece, “A Father’s Pain, a Judge’s Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach,” follows the conviction and subsequent suicide of Paul Wayment, a Utah resident whose son wandered off and died after Wayment left him alone in a car while hunting. From the very beginning, Siegel’s writing is very suspenseful and leaves the reader wanting more: He sat in his chambers, unprepared for this. “Just giving you a heads up,” his court administrator was saying. “Paul Wayment hasn’t reported in yet. They can’t find him.” Judge Robert Hilder felt uneasy. Wayment was supposed to start his jail sentence this morning.
Much of the story focuses on Judge Hilder and the tough decisions he has to make when sentencing Wayment. Siegel establishes Hilder as both as a father and a judge, allowing the reader to see why the judge is torn: As always, his 6-year-old son’s drawings and broken Lego toys covered the floor of his Ford Taurus. At the courthouse, he walked down a hallway that took him past the administrator’s glass-walled office.
Before the reader knows what happened to Wayment’s son, Gage, Siegel includes a direct quote from the distraught father, thus showing the reader the magnitude of Wayment’s choice: “In one brief monumental moment,” he would later say of this instant, “I made the biggest and most painful mistake of my life.”
Siegel’s prose also reflects Wayment’s demeanor. When searching for his son immediately after discovering him missing, Wayment is panicked, and Siegel writes in a hurried, quick way, causing the reader to feel panicked as well: Wayment plunged into a nearby pond, fighting a rising panic. Gage loved the water. That’s where he’d go. For sure he’s in the pond.
Friess’ “Many Stark Contrasts as Simpson Is Convicted” explores the differences between OJ Simpson’s 1995 murder trial and his 2008 kidnapping and burglary trial. From the very beginning, the reader knows what the story is about, because Friess provides a detailed lead: By the time O. J. Simpson stood up in court late Friday to hear the spray of guilty verdicts on robbery and kidnapping charges that may send him to prison for the rest of his life, he was already so far removed from the heights of his fame and popularity that an entire generation of young Americans was barely aware that he had ever been a football star.
Friess provides examples of differences, thereby legitimizing his claims: Instead of millions of Americans obsessively stewing over the daily details in the case against him, a city block set aside for news media tents was largely empty for the four-week trial. Mr. Simpson’s comings and goings were barely noticed.
Friess also compares Simpson’s reactions when the verdicts were read: Mr. Simpson, 61, stood up older and noticeably less confident as guilty verdicts were read on all 12 charges than he did when he emphatically declared himself “absolutely, positively, 100 percent not guilty” in the 1994 killings.
This time, he sighed heavily as his sister, Carmelita Durio, sobbed and fainted. He appeared resigned to the idea that the jury of nine women and three men had not believed his argument that he was trying to retrieve personal keepsakes that had been stolen from his home or that he was unaware that two of the five men had carried or displayed weapons.
The journalist also provides a juror’s account, allowing the reader to see why the jury decided to convict Simpson: “We never once referred to the past,” Ms. Sorge said. “We had so much information in front of us to consider. We had hours of detailed recordings, and we were comparing our notes on what the witnesses said. We watched what would clarify the information more. And remember, we watched and listened to everything in the courtroom a number of times.”
Friesss also consults an ‘expert’ to further highlight how Simpson changed: Mr. Simpson’s solitude was palpable to Dominick Dunne, the Vanity Fair columnist who made a name for himself during the 1995 trial for his forceful denunciations of Mr. Simpson.
“There’s a loneliness, a sadness about O. J. that I never saw before,” said Mr. Dunne, who observed the first two weeks of the robbery trial. “I think he understands how wrecked his life is.”
Friess also contrasts arguably one of the most memorable components of Simpson’s 1995 trial – the ecstatic reactions from the black community – with today, to show how different the two trials were: In 1995, Mr. Simpson was a cause célèbre for many blacks who viewed him as suffering a raw deal from a racist judicial system. This time, not a single black activist in Las Vegas picketed, protested or even commented on the case.
Marc Lacey’s story, “Abuse Trails Central American Girls Into Gangs,” explores how many abused young Central American girls join gangs in order to feel loved and included. From the piece’s opening, Lacey shows the reader the awful things the girls must participate in to be in the gang: To join one of Central America’s fierce street gangs, Benky, a tiny young woman with heavy mascara and tattoos running up and down her arms, had to have sex with a dozen or so of her homeboys one night. She recalls sobbing uncontrollably when the last young man climbed off her and everyone gathered around to congratulate her on becoming a full-fledged member of the Mara Salvatrucha.
Lacey also shows the reader how hard it is for girls to get out of gangs, providing reason to readers who are likely frustrated by the story’s subjects: When she tried to leave the gang five years later, her fellow gang members shot her six times. The scars still visible on her body vouch for her story, as do social workers who visited her during the nine months she spent in a hospital.
In the beginning of the article, Lacey focuses on just one girl in a gang. As the article continues, he expands the scope of the story to show that it is a larger issue: Horrible as it is, Benky’s story is not unusual. Her lament is one heard from young women in gangs across the region, and in interviews many told similar tales of sexual initiation, beatings and being made to rob and kill to earn their place.
For many readers, gang violence may be frustrating to grasp. Why would someone willingly put themselves in that kind of danger? Why would someone ever join a gang? Lacey explains why many young girls join gangs so that the audience may better understand the subjects: It is abuse in their home lives that often propels them into the gangs in the first place, and those gangs often continue the abuse under the veil of protection. The gang is their adopted family, the women say, offering what proves to be an unpredictable mix of affection and aggression.
The writer also quotes a young girl in a gang talking about her boyfriend, and the reader is able to see just how distorted gang members’ views can become: “He was very kind,” she said. “Sometimes, he’d go out and rob buses just to get me what I wanted.”
Though many gang members do not leave the streets, Lacey does explore the option of leaving, giving readers some hope that the story’s subjects may lead better lives in the future: But another inmate, 25, who goes by the nickname Happy, said she intended to leave the gang when she finished her sentence for robbing buses. In her first years behind bars, members of the gang would come by to visit, she said. But that eventually faded. Nowadays, five years in, it is only her mother who brings her food and clothes.
Newman’s article, “Lawmaker Found Guilty of Corruption,” reports on State Assemblywoman Diane M. Gordon, who accepted a bribe to help a builder obtain city-owned land in exchange for a luxury home. Newman begins the article with a succinct lead, giving the reader a clear idea of the article without having to read the entire piece: State Assemblywoman Diane M. Gordon of Brooklyn was convicted on Tuesday of receiving a bribe for offering to help a developer acquire a parcel of city-owned land in her district if he would build her a free house in a gated community in Queens.
Newman explains the ramifications of Gordon’s actions, informing the reader of consequences early on: The conviction means that Ms. Gordon, 58, a four-term Democrat from East New York, immediately loses her Assembly seat, which will remain vacant until the general election in November.
The writer also provides background information and the series of events leading up to Gordon’s arrest, thus providing the reader with the greatest amount of relevant, clear information possible: In October 2004, Mr. Batheja and Ms. Gordon met at her office. On a tape of the meeting played at trial, the assemblywoman asks Mr. Batheja what happened to her doors, then says she would advocate for him to be named redeveloper of a vacant city-owned parcel in her district. She then asks Mr. Batheja if she would be able to get a house in a gated community he was building in Lindenwood. “Let’s work one hand work together,” she tells him. “One hand washes another.”
Newman also provides examples of other local politicians who accepted bribes, showing that Gordon is part of a larger problem: Ms. Gordon is the third state lawmaker from Brooklyn to be convicted of corruption in recent years. Former Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr., once the chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, is serving three to nine years in prison for extortion and campaign-finance violations. And former Assemblyman Roger L. Green pleaded guilty in 2004 to falsely billing the state for travel expenses.
“Stepfather Is Convicted of Manslaughter in Beating Death of 7-Year-Old Girl,” written by Andy Newman and Annie Correal, explains the conviction of Cesar Rodriguez, who killed his step-daughter, Nixzmary Brown. The reader knows what the story is about from the very beginning, as the writers provide a very informative lead: A deeply divided jury in Brooklyn convicted the stepfather of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown of first-degree manslaughter for his role in her fatal 2006 beating, inflicted as punishment for stealing a snack from the refrigerator and jamming his computer printer with toys. But the jury acquitted the stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, of second-degree murder.
The writers also explain the broad ramifications of the case right away (in the second paragraph), so a reader who does not have the time to read the entire article is able to absorb the most important information: The verdict, reached on the fourth day of deliberations at State Supreme Court after eight weeks of testimony, brought an end to the first trial in one of the most horrific child deaths in recent New York history, one that caused an overhaul of the city’s child welfare system and a spurt in child-abuse reports and foster care placement.
The story is also accompanied by photographs of the little girl and her killer, allowing the reader to become more emotionally invested in the story, as well as have a clearer picture of what happened and the parties involved.
The journalists also explain the charges against Rodriguez in layman’s terms so that the audience can understand the crimes he committed: So the jury of 10 women and 2 men voted to convict him on the heaviest charge that all could agree on, first-degree manslaughter.
That crime is defined as causing death by recklessly engaging in conduct, with intent to cause physical injury, that creates “a grave risk of serious physical injury.”
The jury was also interviewed for the story, and jurors were able to provide their reasoning for why they convicted Rodriguez of most crimes, but not of the most serious one against him. By doing so, the writers ensure that the reader will have a clear idea of what transpired in deliberations: Jurors said afterward that most of them wanted to convict Mr. Rodriguez of second-degree murder but that several holdouts said prosecutors had not proved that Mr. Rodriguez acted with “depraved indifference to human life,” the standard for second-degree murder in this case.
The journalists also showed that there was a history of abuse in the home, and that city workers did not do their jobs, therefore acting as ‘watchdogs’: On Jan. 10, 2006, the welfare agency assigned case workers to visit the home after hours, but the case workers decided to wait till the morning.
Barry Siegel, Steve Friess, Marc Lacey, Andy Newman and Annie Correal are all excellent journalists who prove that great crime stories do not have to embellished, but can contain a balance of drama and facts and can completely captivate readers.
Tags: america's best, courts, crimes, journalism
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