How a crime reporter ensured censorship didn’t prevail
A lesson every journalist must learn over time — to choose your battles wisely.
Welcome to Don’t Forget My Voice, a newsletter to help you navigate the chaotic and toxic maze of journalism. I’m Mc Nelly Torres, a longtime investigative journalist, editor, trainer and mentor.
Last October, I posted a message on Twitter that struck a nerve among my followers and especially journalists. The tweet — Twitter will always be just that to me and not the Nazi cesspool created by X — took a life of its own.
Today, I’ll describe details behind the tweet, how it unfolded and what I learned from that experience a long time ago while working at my second newspaper job.
I was a criminal justice reporter for a newspaper in Oklahoma when a man was arrested and charged with molesting a young girl. This story hit home at a terrifying personal level because this individual was a staff member at the biggest day care in Lawton, Oklahoma, where my children were also cared for.
When I learned about this, I was stunned, and worried that this man had, too, abused my children in any shape or form.
I talked to my children — a boy and girl younger than 10 at the time — asking questions gently and carefully. I was terrified and needed to know if this individual had done anything inappropriate in front of them OR to them.
I’ve written about many of these awful cases in which children were abused by relatives and significant others. I have taught my children not to trust anybody and especially to never be alone with an adult under any circumstances. Even if you are a news consumer, you don’t really know how sick people can be and how children become targets for physical violence and sexual assault. I had the unfortunate job of writing about many of them.
My children were upset, especially my son, who was older and had grown to like this guy, but there was nothing that I needed to worry about at the moment. These were allegations and the incident didn’t take place at the day care, but in his house.
I won’t go further into that because it doesn’t pertain to what happened next. But I knew that I couldn’t cover this case for many reasons, including ethically. There’s a balancing act in journalism and a straight line that I was not willing to cross.
So, I decided to talk to the managing editor about my issues with this story after covering the arraignment in court.
Before I began my daily rounds, which included the police station, sheriff’s department and the clerk’s office at the courthouse before the arraignment, I received a call from a local TV reporter whose daughter also attended the day care. We had a friendly-competitive relationship; she knew well that I had many sources spread out within numerous departments and across agencies.
That has become my style and strategy. I had a lot of sources within the same agencies and all gave me different types of information that were always useful to me. It took me a while to get there but I was at a comfortable place and people like this TV reporter hated that.
In those days (late ’90s), the only game in town in terms of media was the newspaper and the local TV station.
We met at her house, a couple of blocks from mine and sat on the brick porch. She was a single mother of a young daughter, was worried and needed to know if I had more on the story about the case.
We compared notes — the alleged incident took place in his house while he was caring for a young girl who was also a client at the day care that cared for dozens of children including our own.
That afternoon I walked into the courtroom and sat in the gallery on the first churchlike pews so I could look this guy in the eyes when he was escorted into the courtroom in handcuffs. He had been arrested over the weekend and spent over 24 hours at Comanche County jail, a tough place riddled with all kinds of problems.
When he saw me, he began to sob. He knew what I do for a living. My byline was in the paper most days, including the front page where I could have two or more bylines at a time. He looked embarrassed.
After the hearing, I went back to the newsroom to write the story. I’d done my rounds including my daily visit to the clerk’s office on the third floor at the courthouse on Fifth Street.
Small-town newspaper
The Lawton Constitution, then a family-owned paper, had a long history supporting local businesses and one of the biggest employers in town, the military base of Fort Sill. The two-story building — and a basement — sat a block away from the police station on Southwest Third Street and several blocks from the courthouse.
Two brothers were now the co-publishers of the paper after they inherited the publication from their father. One brother oversaw the business side and the other editorial.
I took the stairs to the second floor and headed toward my desk in the middle of the newsroom next to the copy desk where the city editor sat.
I could see the managing editor, who died in 2007, standing in front of his office, his arms on his hips looking serious. Because of his body shape, he always reminded me of Ziggy, the American comic strip character who endures an endless stream of daily misfortunes and sad events.
He was waiting for me.
“Torres! In my office now,” the managing editor said as he made gestures and pointed his right index finger towards me.
I walked into his office just a couple of feet away from my desk and before I opened my mouth he took control of the meeting by sharing that the day care owner, a woman, had called him.
I knew the owner too. I’d checked out that business before I enrolled my precious children there. They were cared for there during the week and fully participated in the summer programs.
I knew where this conversation was going and how it would end. He said that she was upset on the phone, crying and begging him not to publish her business’ name.
I objected and said the people of Lawton had a right to know where this man worked even though these were just allegations at the moment.
“This is a small town anyway, people know each other and people talk,” I said.
“How will the paper of record look to its readers?” I asked.
I suspected that the day care owner had also called one of the publishers before word got down to the managing editor. That’s how usually things roll in small towns.
He wasted no time in giving me the directive: We are not publishing the name of the business or what the defendant does for a living and that’s final.
I knew this was a lost battle, but I had to try. It was a lesson as a young reporter that I never took for granted after that day: learn to choose your battles.
So I moved to the next item on my agenda and told the managing editor that I was too close to this story and ethically I believed that I needed to recuse myself from covering this case any further.
He agreed.
I went back to my desk and wrote the story. That evening as I was driving home I called a reporter I knew at the Daily Oklahoman and gave him the scoop.
The Daily Oklahoman published the story naming the business where the defendant worked and what he did for a living.
In the end, this was about the people's right to know and the reason why I became a journalist. There will be times in your career when you need to take yourself out of the story because it is not about you. Our job is to inform the public.
Never lose sight of that.
Thanks for reading.
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GM! Have you ever been in a situation where an editor or management killed your story? Love to hear what happened and how you handled it. We are not in the business of suppressing stories. We are in the business of informing the public. I hope you subscribe and share with others!