Let’s all take a minute

Madison mayor’s tongue-lashing of the press in a time of trauma was ill-advised

by

It was the “y’all” heard ‘round the world. 

During a news conference on Dec. 17, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway was fielding questions about the tragic school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School when a reporter asked why the names of those shot had not yet been released, more than 24 hours after the shooting occurred. Rhodes-Conway, who had already made a case for respecting the privacy of the victims and their families, lashed out at the journalists in the room.

“It is absolutely none of y’all’s business who was harmed in this incident,” Rhodes-Conway said. “Please have some human decency and respect for the people who lost loved ones or were injured themselves or whose children were injured. Just have some human decency folks. Leave them alone. Let them grieve. Let them recover. Let them heal. Don’t feed off their pain. We’ll share what we can when we can and not before that.”

Her scolding went viral in a Tik-Tok video posted by The Daily Mail, receiving 26.7 million views and more than 41,000 comments, much of it praise. “I’ve been waiting so long for someone to stand in front of the media and say this, during the most horrific experience of these families’ lives!” one commenter said. “My heart goes out to all of these families. My deepest condolences & sympathies.”

“Thank you Wisconsin for standing on morals,” said another.

Some local journalists had a different reaction on a local Facebook page: “I was flabbergasted by her remarks,” wrote Joe Hart, a former longtime editor at The Capital Times who is now retired. “She sounded like Trump. Reporters were asking questions that needed to be asked. She can choose to answer them or not. She instead was a bully, just like Trump. It was embarrassing.” 

Vincent Filak, a professor of journalism at UW-Oshkosh and the author of six journalism textbooks, posted an open letter to the mayor on his blog, titling it, “Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway: Media folks don’t like dealing with the death of kids any more than you do, so please don’t treat them like crap.” 

Filak laid out his credentials for his response: “I spent three years as a reporter, another five as an editor and then about 15 as a newsroom adviser, and in every case, I’ve had to deal with stories involving dead kids.”

He wrote that journalists, too, are affected by the traumatic events they must report on. He remembers the names of all the deceased individuals he covered and still thinks about what might have come of their lives. 

In reporting on these tragedies, he found that victims responded in one of three ways when asked to share their story. Some just declined: “I would apologize for intruding on their grief and then leave them alone,” he said. Others reacted angrily to the intrusion. “Again, I’d apologize and back away.” 

Others, though, were looking for an opportunity to talk about their loved ones. “Everyone around them is feeling the same pain, misery, stress and more….All they want to do is talk about how great their kid was, or how amazing their parent was or whatever stories make them feel less hurt. As a journalist, we’re that opportunity to not only help, but to share their thoughts with others.” 

Bill Lueders, an Isthmus contributor and president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, says he was saddened to hear the mayor suggest that the reporters covering the shooting lacked human decency. “She apparently has no idea how hard it is to cover stories like these, how much it hurts, how the journalists who do so cry when the cameras are off or as they pound away at their keyboards,” he says. 

“Reporters seek information on victims not to exploit them but to honor their memory as unique human beings,” he adds. “We know that Rubi Vergara, the 14-year-old girl who was killed, loved deep-dish pizza, could play piano by ear, and was described as ‘a light in this world’ because some reporter held in her own sadness enough to cull these tidbits from a memorial service and write them up.”

At the news conference Rhodes-Conway had been asked several times when the city would release the names of the victims in the Abundant Life shooting. In her defense, she said several times that her priority was to respect the victims’ “privacy and their timeline” and to make sure all information released was accurate. The reporter who asked the question prompting the mayor’s rebuke seemed to suggest that it was unacceptable that the city was not prepared to release the names of the victims 27 hours after the shooting. 

Dylan Brogan, spokesperson for the city, says that Rhodes-Conway’s remarks were not directed at all the reporters in the room. “She really wishes that a lot of national reporters were following local reporters’ lead,” he says. “Local reporters who live in this community were a lot more sensitive. We were not feeling that with a handful of outlets.”

As the city’s remaining daily newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal provided the most incremental coverage in print of the shooting and its aftermath. Executive editor Kelly Lecker says that photographers and reporters headed to the scene when they heard of the shooting; three editors and other reporters staffed the office, posting information as it came in, editing video and making phone calls. 

“In breaking news situations, we want to get important information to the public as quickly as possible to help them understand what is happening,” Lecker says. “Is there a threat to the public? Where should parents go? Are there areas to avoid while police investigate? What happened?”

In the following days, Lecker adds, “the staff turned its attention to covering issues that might help the public understand why and how this tragedy happened, including possible warning signs, school safety, and importantly how this community was coming together to support its own. Everyone wants to help, so it was important to tell people how they could do that. We wrote about the victims, because their stories need to be told so everyone understands all that was lost, but we respected that family members were not ready to talk.” 

In recent decades, as gun violence in particular has escalated, there has been a focus in journalism circles on “trauma-informed reporting.” In short, it calls for reporting that does no further harm to already traumatized individuals. 

“Trauma-informed journalism means understanding trauma, understanding what a trauma survivor is experiencing before you show up at their door, and understanding how your actions [as a journalist] will impact them after you pack up and leave,” Tamara Cherry, a former crime reporter and the author of The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News, says in an explainer on the topic in The Journalist’s Resource. 

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma provides a 31-page guide for reporters and editors with specific instructions on how to approach victims, conduct interviews and write stories. Among the advice: “Bear in mind the emotional impact of what has happened. Approach people with care, respect and kindness. Take a moment to introduce yourself, make eye contact and explain why you would like to talk to them. Take it slowly and don’t rush — however chaotic the circumstances.”

As with all professions, there are good journalists and some not-so-good journalists. Can we all do better? Absolutely. 

But we should also remember that journalists themselves are working in fraught times and increasingly under attack. There have been 1,100 reported assaults on journalists this year in the U.S., according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, and tolerance for targeting the press is growing, according to a study by the International Center for Journalists. 

Journalists should be held accountable for their actions. But let’s not reflexively attack perceived character flaws or impugn their motivation. 

Rhodes-Conway, herself, acknowledged the humanity of journalists when she opened the news conference, asking everyone in the room “to take a minute.” 

“It’s been an incredibly difficult 24-plus hours at this point in time,” she said. “We’re all human, including each and every one of you in the media who is covering this really tragic event. Please remember that you’re human and take care of yourselves. We all need to do that….Because that’s our job now. To take care of ourselves so we can take care of each other and our community.” 

Well said, Mayor.