Behind the Headlines

It was one of the strangest phone calls I’ve taken as metro editor at the Herald-Leader — and I’ve taken plenty of odd phone calls over the years. The woman on the line was despondent because she said the county coroner had left her friend’s scalp in wooded area along Newtown Pike. The man had died there, apparently under accidental circumstances, and the coroner had removed the rest of the body several days earlier. But the woman said a piece of her friend’s scalp, including hair, had been left behind. Further, she said she couldn’t get the coroner’s office to come out and get it.

So I asked police reporter Steve Lannen to find out what was going on.

He made some calls, then left to meet the woman, Sherry Nimbach. When Steve called me back a few hours later, things got a little stranger. “I have a scalp in my car,” Steve told me. Steve was on his way to the coroner’s office to deliver the body part, which Nimbach had removed from the roadside a few days before, wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in her freezer. Steve had advised her to take the hair to the coroner, but she was too distraught to do so, and begged him to take the bag to the coroner’s office. Steve agreed to do so, and Coroner Gary Ginn later confirmed that the material was a chunk of the victim’s hair. Ginn also took responsibility for leaving the material behind in the ditch. (Read Steve’s story, "Coroner gets dead man’s hair.")

And thus a new chapter was added to the lore of the Herald-Leader newsroom — and a rather interesting ethical discussion was borne. The ethical conundrum was two-fold: Should a reporter accept proffered body parts? And, if a reporter does accept said body parts, has he become so tied up in the story that he can no longer objectively write it?

Opinions in the newsroom differed on these points, as is often the case in journalism. Here are a few of the viewpoints from those involved in the story:

Steve Lannen, the reporter:
Steve says that he first advised Sherry Nimbach to turn the material over to the coroner. “But for whatever reason – fear, grief, distrust of authorities or all three – Sherry Nimbach balked at taking a piece of her friend’s hair and scalp to the coroner’s office," Steve says. “She begged me to do it. I rolled my eyes and balked myself and again encouraged her to make the delivery. But her protests increased and I started feeling bad for her dead friend, Paul. If I were in the same situation, I imagine I’d like someone to reunite my remains. And, I guess I’m a sucker for tears.

“In my gut, I suppose I knew I was crossing some journalism ethics line, but I couldn’t think of anything better… I was on the front porch with a mourning woman, who I didn’t know, whose moods swung widely the past few hours I had been with her. Oh, and she had produced a scalp from her freezer. Were we just going to stand there with the trash bag indefinitely?

“Just do the right thing, I thought. ‘Oh, OK. I’ll do it for Paul,’ I said. ‘Oh, Thank you. You don’t know what a good thing you’re doing,’ she said.”

Assistant metro editor Dori Hjalmarson, who ultimately edited Steve’s story:
“Normally the ethical muses of journalism frown on reporters becoming characters in the news they are writing about. Herald-Leader reporters and editors go to great lengths to balance and separate our jobs and our personal lives. It’s our duty to tell stories through others’ voices, to present other points of view – not our own.

“So what should Steve have done when presented with human remains from a woman’s freezer?

“Refuse to take them? It’s the job of all citizens – even journalists – to report things like human body parts to police. Call police on the spot? That risks breaking the trust of a woman who confided in us – also journalistically unethical. Besides, that still makes Steve a character in the story. Comply and take the remains to the coroner? That’s what Steve did.

“Then how do we present the story to readers? We must write it for at least two reasons. It’s newsworthy: The county coroner, a publicly elected official, acknowledged that he’d made a mistake in leaving any remains behind. It’s a compelling story: You can imagine what a woman went through, keeping part of her friend in a freezer and believing no one would take her seriously.

“But Steve is part of the story now. Should he write the story in first person? No, he doesn’t have first-hand knowledge of most of the story – only a small part of it. Should he remove himself completely from the story? No, that would be dishonest. Should he refer to himself in the third person – ‘the reporter’? That, in my opinion, leaves open the question of whether he’s the writer or the actor – or both. It’s a common journalistic tool when we want to avoid ‘being part of the story,’ but it’s one I don’t really like because I think it can be misunderstood. Plus, it’s corny to refer to oneself in the third person.

“I was not the editor dealing with the reporter throughout the ordeal… I did read and edit the story after Steve had written it six hours later, and I wrestled with how to present Steve’s side of the story. I have come to this conclusion:

“I believe a different reporter should have taken over the reporting once the first reporter became part of the action. I believe a fair and objective observer is needed to tell a news story the right way, and anyone who is a character in the story should not be presented as objective. But it took a bit of hindsight for me to come to that conclusion, and other editors, including my boss, disagree with me. When we’re moving as fast as we do, and when a reporter asks you what he should do with the human remains in his car, things aren’t always neat and clean.”

Here’s my take:
As the editor who took the initial call and worked with Steve as he reported, I think he did the right thing. The remains belonged with the coroner, and Steve took them there straight-away. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to make a decision, and he was dealing with someone who was obviously distraught at the way her friend’s remains had been handled. The remains belonged at the coroner’s office, and Steve made sure they got there. His other choice would have been to call the police or the coroner, but that doesn’t affect his involvement in the story any less, and the outcome is the same.

Second, I don’t think it was necessary for someone else to write the story. Steve had interviewed all of the major players, including Sherry Nimbach and Gary Ginn. He had seen the spot where the remains were found, and he had seen the remains in the bag with his own eyes. He had the most information, and the best information, to write a detailed and clear story. He played a minimal role in the story, essentially acting as a delivery person. His involvement didn’t change the story line significantly, other than to ensure that the remains made it to where they belonged. Also, I don’t think his minimal role compromised his objectivity (I’m not sure someone can be pro or anti when body parts are concerned). And there was a practical issue: By the time Steve got back to the newsroom, it was Friday evening, and deadline was approaching. It would have been impractical for another reporter to retrace the threads of the story to produce as thorough an account as Steve could produce.

So Steve wrote the story. In retrospect, I think we should have done one thing differently: We should have run a sidebar with the story explaining the odd circumstances in more detail, and Steve’s role in the story. Unfortunately, that idea didn’t occur to me until the next morning.

So, consider this blog entry the sidebar that could have have run with the article. Sometimes, an unusual story merits a bit more explanation.

Peter Baniak
metro editor

There are many successful youth sports teams in central Kentucky (softball, baseball, AAU basketball, etc.), and each one is proud of its accomplishments. Fortunately, our area is filled with quality coaches and young athletes. Each time a team wins a city tournament, a city league regular season title, a traveling tournament or another of the many events held each summer, it provides that team with many memories.

The Herald-Leader generally shies away from covering youth sports. Typically, we begin covering teams and athletes at the prep level. There are many reasons for this. It is a natural starting point. Also, it is my feeling that we are a society that has blown sports out of proportion, and part of our job should be to help keep that in perspective and not go overboard with adulation of sports accomplishments at a young age.

Our Communities section has always been open to acknowledging local team accomplishments. But in Sports, we rarely cover youth basketball, football and soccer. We have made an exception for the 12-year-old Little League Baseball World Series. Traditionally, Little League recognizes the 12-year-old group as the premier age.

In past years, we have covered Lexington teams in the Cal Ripken World Series if the team reached the United States title game. If the team won that and reached the world championship game the next day, we covered that game. That required having a reporter on call to fly to Aberdeen, Md., the morning of the game.

For the first time this year, the Cal Ripken organization had two World Series sites. Upon checking into it, we learned that the organization was promoting its Aberdeen tournament as the premier event. It was the televised tournament and also the one that maintained a world title.

Cal Ripken also held another World Series tournament in Arkansas. It happened that different Lexington leagues sent a team to each one. We made the decision that if a Lexington team advanced deep into the tournament, we would cover the Aberdeen event because it was the one the Cal Ripken organization itself recognized as its premier event.

During both tournaments, we collected results from calls, Web sites and other papers to write roundups on how the local teams were doing. We knew that if the Southeastern team reached the Aberdeen finals, we were prepared to send a reporter. We found out Thursday night that the team had won and reporter Jen Smith took a plane out of Lexington on Friday morning to staff a 5:30 p.m. game.

Meanwhile, South Lexington won the tournament in Arkansas. The tournament was a national one without a world game. We gathered information from several sources and wrote a story that appeared at the top of the third page of the Sports section.

As it turned out, we covered only one game in Aberdeen. The Southeastern team lost in the U.S. title game. Because Cal Ripken had made this its premier event, and because we flew someone to Aberdeen, we played the story on the Sports front. Of course, because of deadlines, we had to decide where to play the story before the game was over.

Our decisions did not sit well with everyone. Some people with Southeastern were upset we only staffed the one game they lost. Those at South Lexington felt slighted because we staffed the Southeastern game. Some fans at another local league of another age, which also won a national event, accused us of favoring south Lexington teams. Then, of course, there were several local girls’ softball teams that played in a World Series…. 

It is great that our local teams are so successful. It certainly makes for an interesting summer.

Gene Abell
Sports Editor

Former Herald-Leader reporter Laura Yuen, who covered Georgetown and Lexington city hall a few years back, now lives in the Twin Cities area, where she reports for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Laura also lives about 1.5 miles from the scene of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Laura and her fiance, Jesse Miller, sped to the scene after they heard about the disaster. Jesse got there by scooter, Laura rode her bike. They met at a pedestrian bridge near the scene of the collapse.

Laura and the rest of the staff at the Pioneer Press have obviously been extremely busy in the last few days, but she took a few moments this morning to check in with her former colleagues at the Herald-Leader.

Here are some of Laura’s thoughts on what she saw:

"We joined thousands of people who gathered there to observe the catastrophe. The bridge is close to the University of Minnesota, and the Metrodome, as well as the largest Somali
concentration in the state, so you can imagine the turnout. There were Twins fans and cyclists and neo-hippies and immigrants and biker dudes and transients and college students. It was kind of like an apartment fire alarm, when all your neighbors go out in their pajamas, and you think, ‘Wow, I never realized all the different kinds of folks who live in this building.’ I saw my neighborhood in a new light that night.


"It makes me sick to think of what the victims’ final moments must have been like. If you’ve seen the video, the bridge is there one second and literally gone the next. Absolutely no time for people to adjust. I talked to two guys who got to the scene right after the bridge collapsed, and they saw motorists getting out of their cars, dazed and bloodied and sobbing, shocked by the enormity of what they just escaped.

"I can’t tell you how many times we’ve crossed that bridge. I take it to go to the mall, the pet store, the Home Depot, basically for all my shopping needs. We’re so lucky to be alive."

Here and below are some of the photos Laura sent along from the scene. All of the photos were taken by Jesse Miller.

Laura’s colleagues and friends at the Herald-Leader are happy that she and Jesse are OK and grateful that she took a few moments to check in. Click here to see the St. Paul paper’s coverage of the disaster.

Peter Baniak, metro editor

Journalism is a cross between profession and a trade. Many universities offer professional degrees specifically in journalism, yet much of journalism must be learned on the job, apprentice-style. Even if you have a journalism degree, if you haven’t had a summer internship at a daily newspaper, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a job in journalism.

I started at the Herald-Leader five years ago as a copy editing intern. Along with my colleague, reporter Delano Massey, who worked as an intern for a former Knight Ridder newspaper, I am proud to now be working with an outstanding class of 12 summer interns. In keeping with Herald-Leader tradition, Delano and I try to make sure our interns are treated like regular staffers and given all manner of assignments. We believe it’s the best way to learn the job.

If you’re a regular Herald-Leader reader, you’ve probably seen these interns’ bylines. I’d like to introduce you to them:

Megan Boehnke (pronounced BANG-key) has graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in journalism and was the top editor at the Kentucky Kernel student newspaper. She has spent most of her time reporting local news on the metro desk, and she spent the past couple of weeks working in our Frankfort bureau. Megan has taken on some major stories this summer, most notably the state attorney general’s recent opinion on domestic partner benefits offered by universities, and a lovely summer series on county fairs. In the fall, Megan will be starting an internship in Washington, D.C.

Leah Caudle is a senior at Western Kentucky University. She speaks Spanish and has a passion for working with Hispanic people and issues. She started out on the metro desk, then moved to the Communities and Faith/Values sections to work with editor Risa Richardson. Some of her notable stories this summer have been “The browning of Kentucky,” the paper’s first piece about the state’s movement into moderate drought, and “A night of fire and rain,” about the city’s damp Fourth of July festivities.

Azra Drljevic (DURL-yev-ich) is a sophomore at University of Kentucky. She will be lead designer of the Kentucky Kernel next year, and she has been a huge help on our features design desk this summer. Two of her notable designs have been in the A la Carte food section: pieces on rhubarb and on summer corn.

Allie Garza is a sophomore at University of Kentucky. She is working part-time for academic credit, and also does a bit of free-lancing for the Herald-Leader. This summer, she has taken especially nice pictures of Lexington’s Fourth of July diversity festival, and has worked with another intern on a story about a young Lexington girl who has taken up boxing. Watch for that story later this summer.

Yvette Lanier is a senior at Michigan State University. She has spent half her time on our features/lifestyle desk, and has recently moved over to the metro desk to cover hard news. Yvette is an idea machine and is always coming up with new stories and fresh angles on old stories. This summer, she has covered the Ichthus Christian music festival in Wilmore, the funeral for a Grant County soldier killed in Iraq, and local churches’ golfing ministries.

Christopher Pate studied at Kentucky State University and recently transferred to Harris Stowe State University in his hometown of St. Louis. Chris is studying education, not journalism, but he impressed us as editor of the KSU student newspaper, The Thorobred News. Chris spent the first five weeks of his internship as a copy editor, where he wrote lots of headlines. He recently moved over to the metro desk where he’s reported on a war protest and written about a documentary on the American Spiritual Ensemble.

Sean Rose is a senior at the University of Kentucky. He has won awards for some of his work on the Kentucky Kernel, including for a story on the crash of Comair Flight 5191 last year. Sean has covered the story of the month in June (Lexington’s yellow bike program) and has come up with numerous enterprising stories, including a report on a UK researcher trying to make fertilizer safer, and a Business Monday story about Kentucky transit systems going green with hybrid buses.

Dariush Shafa graduated from the University of Kentucky in journalism and English. He has interned at the Herald-Leader before, as well as at the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. This year, he’s working on our Business desk, where he produced the centerpiece of our Investment Quarterly section, on financial matters for young adults. He has also enthusiastically taken on several general assignment stories such as parking meters that were vandalized with glue, and a new goat cheese maker in Kentucky.

Jessica Shaw is a sophomore in journalism at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. She is working through a fellowship called the Shepherd Alliance poverty studies program. Many of the Shepherd Alliance interns work with charities such as Habitat for Humanity, but a couple of them are assigned to newspapers that cover Appalachian issues and aim to report on poverty and non-profits. This summer, Jessica has written about the Lexington Mayor’s Training Center, a voucher program to provide needy people with produce from the Lexington Farmer’s Market, and the Salvation Army’s LemonAID summer fund-raiser.

Jonathan Smith is a junior at University of Kentucky, where he has been a sports editor and a general assignment at the Kentucky Kernel. He is working on the Herald-Leader’s sports desk, where he has regularly covered the Lexington Legends and has contributed to a couple of UK basketball recruiting stories. Jonathan also writes interesting profiles of athletes, such as one of the top javelin throwers in the country, and UK’s new football kicker whose brother kicked for University of Louisville.

Tricia Spaulding just graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in journalism. She has been taking photographs for three years. Tricia loves to meet new people and tell their stories honestly and with compassion. That has come through in her coverage of the Communities at Oakwood, roller-coasters, and most notably, a summer series on county fairs.

Danielle Trusso just graduated from Ohio University. Last summer, she interned for National Public Radio. This summer, she is working through the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund online internship program and has produced numerous video and audio packages for Kentucky.com. To name a few, Danielle has interviewed Rick Dees, covered the release of the iPhone in the paper and online, and collected audio to accompany a feature story on auctioneers.

We are already starting to look for next year’s class of summer interns – the application deadline is November 9. If you would like to apply, please send a cover letter, resume, and clips to: Intern coordinators, Herald-Leader newsroom, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Ky., 40508.

Or just e-mail me.

Dori Hjalmarson
Assistant metro editor

About a month ago, two of our summer interns, writer Megan Boehnke and photographer Tricia Spaulding, conceived of a summertime series on county fairs. Megan and Tricia both have rural Kentucky roots, and they love fairs. They wanted to portray the interesting events that happen there. The Herald-Leader almost never covers county fairs, certainly not to the extent that Megan and Tricia were proposing, so we told them to go for it – starting with the Wayne County Fair beauty pageant. Their coverage appeared on the City | Region front page on July 1.

Putting the paper together the night before, I saw Megan’s story before I saw Tricia’s photos.

I’m an assistant metro editor, a word person. I usually have input but no final say in photo choice. When I saw black-and-white proofs (computer print-outs) of Tricia’s photos, I could tell she and Megan had worked closely together. The tone of the photos matched perfectly the tone of the story. The contestants carried giant umbrellas on the stage and had to keep their trains from dragging in the mud. Glue and tape kept costumes from malfunctioning. Girls paraded before the judges and a decidedly sparse audience. One girl registered five minutes before the event. Hairspray, tape and glue held everyone together between rounds. There was an element of the ridiculous: Chicken wings were had for dinner – can you picture beauty contestants wearing evening gowns and eating chicken wings?

Working with the night photo editor and the page designer, all of us women, I agreed that a photograph of one anonymous contestant, from behind, showing the drizzle and the stage and the onlookers, matched the tone of the story very well. The contestant was in a bathing suit and shown only from the waist down, which gave me some pause, but the bathing suit was firmly in place (glued?), so I did not think it offensive. We went with it.

Later in the evening, a man’s comment made me think twice. The copy editor, who writes headlines and edits for grammar, facts and taste, said he thought the girl’s behind was distracting and maybe not a good choice for the full-color lead photo. Could it be in poor taste?

I thought about the question and briefly discussed it with other editors again, but we decided the photograph was not in poor taste. It showed less skin than you might see at a public pool, the contestant was not named, and she was a willing participant in a pageant that focuses heavily on swimsuits. Also, the photo had other story-telling aspects – it showed the rain and the crowd in the background. We were up against our first edition deadline, so we went with the photo.

Then I saw our first edition paper, which is sent up from the press room to the newsroom before we start making changes for final edition. Interested parties – women and men including the night news editor, the copy desk chief, the night photo editor, the page designer, and several other newsroom staffers – gathered around to discuss again, since we were seeing it in print for the first time. We had a strong second choice for that lead photo spot: a picture of a contestant trotting along the stage carrying a large umbrella to stay dry. She was wearing a bathing suit, but you could see her face and her full body, from the side. The overall color, including a large green and white fair tent in the background, was also eye-popping.

There were opposing views shared that night. We all knew that some readers would have a problem with the strangeness of a woman’s butt on the front of the City | Region section. In fact, some people in the newsroom had a problem with it. We wanted the story and photos to correspond in tone and subject matter; we didn’t want one to detract from the other. We wanted a technically proficient photograph. We did not want to offend anyone, but we did want to grab attention and show readers there was something special and different to read here. We wanted a photo that was multi-layered, showing not only people, but also the place and the rain. We wanted to do justice to the beauty contestants; we weren’t deliberately aiming for an unflattering photo.

We went back and forth three or four times, building consensus for one photo, then for the other. We decided to stay with the original choice. It won out because it was surprising and multi-layered, and it came closer to matching the themes in the story – glued bathing suits and all. Our second choice, the photograph of the contestant with the umbrella appeared on Page B2 in final edition and in a slide show about the fair on Kentucky.com. It was our second choice because it was not as eye-catching and did not show as many aspects of the fair, such as the sense of place.

We have received a few complaints about the photograph since Sunday morning. Most of the complaints come from women, and most of them say the photograph portrays the beauty contestants as one-dimensional sex objects. That argument did not enter my mind on Saturday. The contestants were willingly, enthusiastically entering a contest judged solely on beauty in gown and bathing suit. The story and photos were done by two people who love the county fair and did not intend to offend but did intend to show a glimpse of reality – silly, sweet and strange all at once.

Dori Hjalmarson
Assistant Metro Editor