AFTER DEADLINE
I hate to be bearer of recent news
By Brad Lendon
Advertiser News Editor
The past few weeks have been disturbing ones, hard weeks to be news editor of The Advertiser.
Five days a week, I choose the stories that appear on the front page of the paper. In the case of wire stories, that means I read all the versions that our many wire services offer.
On Tuesday, I read every story — and there were dozens of them — on the slaughter of American businessman Nicholas Berg by terrorists in Iraq.
I read over and over accounts of the video posted on the Internet by those who committed this heinous crime. I won't put those words in print again here. I've read them enough. I think you've read them enough.
Those words sicken me, they haunt me more deeply than I can find words to express.
Those words describe an act that makes me doubt my soul, for those who butchered Nicholas Berg come from the same creator as mine.
And those words sometimes make it hard to come to work.
To give you the most comprehensive and balanced account of what is happening in Iraq, I have to read about the beheading of Nicholas Berg. I have to read about the abuse U.S. soldiers inflicted upon prisoners under their control.
I have to read about and be informed about the worst in this world, from the depravity in Iraq to the horror now visiting Sudan, where refugees are fleeing an ethnic cleansing that may rival the Rwanda genocide when the final toll is made.
To be sure, I've probably read thousands of stories that have shown humanity at its worst in my 22 years in newspapers.
But they seem to come more often these days. There was no time to digest what was done at Abu Ghraib prison — to soften the images of abuse, to find comfort and hope in the smile of a child — before the news of the Berg murder was on my computer screen.
At the same time, Palestinians were bartering the body parts of Israeli soldiers killed in battle for the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails.
It is the duty of journalists to bring the world into your home, whether in print, on television or online. I embraced that duty when I got into this profession.
But lately I feel like we're invaders, bringing inside your walls things that are too painful to see, too gut-churning to read. Things you don't want your children to know. Things that you are powerless to stop, but that assault you with increasing frequency.
I don't want you to stop reading this newspaper. Ignorance will not cure our world or help our consciences, any more than it helped the people in Germany 60 years ago who pretended concentration camps were not in their back yards.
But as you read, measure your dose. Take what you can of war, then look for good news in the paper.
Look for stories like the Mother's Day piece on Marcia Donovan-Demers, a truly remarkable person whose dedication to family and self-improvement inspires us all. And follow Jasmine Trias on her wondrous ride on "American Idol."
I'll do my best to put those stories where you can see them. I'll try to find more like them for you.
When I try to sleep tonight, I'll try to think of those stories, not those documenting the lowest depths of our species.
And I'll be back at my desk tomorrow. The news has to get better.
