Yesterday's events
A fellow co-worker, who has repeatedly threatened me not to post her name on the blog, has asked me to write about covering the apparent murder-suicide of a 3-year-old boy and his father. As a young reporter, there is a certain excitement one gets when going out and covering a story.
I was told to go out to the apartment complex in the M Streets neighborhood of Dallas around 7:45 a.m. When I arrived, a dozen or so police cars were there, including SWAT and the medical examiner. Caution tape was draped across the north entrance of the apartment complex.
For the next five or so hours, I talked to neighbors, family members and even saw the ME put the body of Leon Ovalle Sr. into the back of their van. Many of the residents didn't speak English, so I had to employ the help of a 10-year-old girl who could translate what I wanted to ask into Spanish. No luck anyway because the family of Leon Ovalle Sr. didn't want to talk. (Later, an Al Dia reporter and DMN reporter Macarena Hernández helped with talking to the people).
Most of the information I got -- mostly non-police stuff -- came from tracing the license plate of Leon's car to a residence in South Dallas. There I found his ex-wife, who gave details on her rocky marriage to Leon for 16 years. The manager of the apartment complex, Linda Smith, told me how the boy who was killed would come into her office and point at the candy jar. He loved lollipops.
I got back to the newsroom around 3:30 p.m., and for the next four hours, Tanya Eiserer and I went over the information we had and rewrote the story. Tanya was great to work with, and I couldn't have had nearly the information I had without her. She is an excellent cops/courts reporter.
So, yesterday's story, although extremely tragic and heartbreaking, was a learning experience.
Comments
Matthew,
You are just a star. I am honestly very impressed with you.
ps. look at what I found!!
http://journalism.missouri.edu/news/2006/10-16-matthew-haag.html
Posted by: Sarah | June 21, 2007 4:18 PM
wow! seriously, that must've been some rush. that's so intense! but what a cool experience...
Posted by: Trish | June 21, 2007 4:34 PM
That is awesome man. Great reporting and a damn good (and well deserved) front page story this morning.
Posted by: Josh Davis | June 21, 2007 9:25 PM
Wonderful. Now...try to remember that what is "showtime" for us is usually a funeral for someone else.
Posted by: Jody Dean | June 22, 2007 3:38 PM
A 3-year-old boy was shot to death by his father. The fact that you find anything about it to be "pretty awesome" or "pretty cool" or that it provided you with a "rush" is both disturbing and disgusting. I'm sure the family appreciated your attempts to get them to speak about this devasting information so you could file your "awesome" story.
Posted by: Jon S | June 22, 2007 4:13 PM
From Reid Slaughter at D Magazine's Frontburner, and I agree with him..."The day that journalism becomes more a path to stardom than a vocation of serving one's fellow man is the day we are finished."
Posted by: Steve | June 22, 2007 8:22 PM
Matthew,
No doubt by now you've read some of the the comments about your blog over on the D magazine website. I hope you'll give them the few seconds thought they deserve, then move on.
The fact of the matter is most of them were posted by persons who have either never been journalists, or don't remember what it was like to be a young journalist, or are engaging the kind of moral posturing we journalists, alas, all to often give way to.
You were absolutely accurate in your reflections on your experience, of course. You have no need to apologize to anyone. You will learn as your career carries you forward that we journalists are caught in a strange but inescapable contradiction: We take pleasure in meeting the challenge of writing our best on the most unimaginable tragedies. But we take no pleasure in those tragedies themselves. In fact, any journalist worth his or her salt feels the weight of those tragedies more keenly than our glib and moralistic critics.
I hope the negative response on the D website -- and, no doubt, other places -- will not deter you from practicing the craft you have chosen.
Don't let the critics keep you from thinking deeply about the moral implications of what you do. But don't ever let them keep you from doing it to the best of your ability, either.
Bill M.
Posted by: Bill M. | June 23, 2007 12:02 AM