TheFoothiUsView
Second Class Postage Paid In Boiling Springs, N. C. 29017
THURSDAY, AUG. 27,1981
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“Ifu See It Your Wa\^’
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BAD NEWS
‘‘I wish it had been a lost child,” I told a friend of this paper. We were talking
about the controversy over Police Chief Ingram and the View’s responsibility to
cover his story. My remark implied that I wished the story had been good news,
a happy ending of a lost child being found. But sometimes children remain lost;
sometimes the news is bad.
Do newspapers create the bad news they cover? Do they lengthen a
controversy by reporting it? Just as a reporter asks abrupt questions so
newspapers should be called to account on these questions. Why is so much
news bad?.
Newspapers seldom create bad news (except when, as in the case of the
Washington Star, they go broke) but they do cover it with an eagerness and
space that is seldom given to, say, a Wednesday night church social. The fact is
that reporters seek out bad news. Partly they build their careers on it, filing
stories that by the scale of devastation demand front pages and editors’
attention. Partly reporters seek out bad news as a confirmation of their
professionalism, a committment to tell the truth whether the truth is easy or
hard.
A police reporter I know in a large city, a man who spends his nights staring at
corpses through a pair of rimless spectacles, is an example of this latter
professionalism. He told me a true story of another journalist, a war
correspondent who for decades has been covering death and suffering. Once the
correspondent was crossing a border into another country; the border guard
looked sown at the passport, then up at the correspondent; then remembered the
articles he had written. ‘‘Oh, you’re here,” the guard said. ‘‘Things must be
worse than I thought.”
Oh, you’re here. Things must be worse than I thought. This is music to the
ears of good journalists, validation of their professionalism: that one is a pro
reporter with an inside source that small bad news is about to become big bad
‘‘I think news in inherently bad whatever it is,” recently said Peter Arnette, 20
years a correspondent with Associated Press and a veteran reporter of Viet-nam
and Iran. Arnette is not just cynical; what people think is news often is
exclusively bad news.
The World’s Most Boring Headline is a case in point. Years ago in Florida I
and a British journalist had a running joke between us to think of a news
headline that would win the contest of world’s most boring. Leave it to the
British to know boredom; he won hands down. The winning entry: SMALL
EARTHQUAKE IN SOU’TH AMERICA; NO ONE HURT. A disappointingly
small disaster; to many people no news. How many readers of the Foothills View
would read a story with such a headline? No news is good news, says the
cliche; but to many readers no bad news is no news.
An editor balancesgoodwith bad by rejecting some of the worst. As an example
of such editing, two weeks ago a salacious cartoon was thrown on roadsides in an
unsigned attack on the police department. One reader wrote us about it:
‘‘I am sure that^^uch trash as the picture.is very un-called for,” wrote Vicki
McSwain. ‘‘It humiliated me, and I was not in the picture. The next one could as
esily be of me.”
Right you are, Mrs. McSwain: or of me, or of a local minister, of doctor, or any
reader of this paper. The cartoon is obscene libel, not an accusation, thrown out
of a car by a driver afraid to sign a name. Therefore, although the View knew of
the letter two weeks ago, it was not reported. It’s trash, not news.
Two other letters in the mail show the remge of news in the View, and our
attempt to bedance it. The first was from Rev. Paul Sorrels:
‘‘You did a distinct service to the readers and to Beaver Dam Baptist Church,”
wrote Rev. Sorrells, thanking us for running a front-page picture of
ground-breaking at Beaver Dam. It’s our pleasure, Rev. SorreUs.
The second was from former police chief Bill Ingram. Ingram wrote after a
front-page story ran in the View on his charges against town officials and on his
job background. Ingram has some points;
‘‘Your article in the View although very good may have left doubts among your
readers as to my allegations,” Ingram writes. Restates that we held him to a
word-for-word accuracy without applying that rigorous a standard to the mayor
of police department. ‘‘The police of course would not admit to missing the calls
but these allegations by this writer can be checked out easily by a good
reporter.”'
There’s some truth to that. Ingram was subjected to more rigorous reporting
than other town officials, who might not have withstood it as well as Ingram.
On the other hand, when accusations are made, the burden of proof is on the
accuser; Ingram also was the subject of a largely sympathetic personal interview.
We try to walk a fine line between skepticesm and sympathy.
‘‘Again, your article was fair,” wrote Ingram, ‘‘And I think people will have a
better understanding of the whole episode.” Thank you, Mr. Ingram, just as
sincerely as we thanked Rev. Sorrels. We’ll take compliments and fairness any
time we can get them—and fairness is the greatest compliment.
What do you think? Is reporting
m the View balanced between
good and bad news? Is it fair?
Write Editor, Box 982, Boiling
Springs 28017
What’s News?
Soybean Markets!
‘'I looked up and I said
‘the damn building’s on fire.
9 99
THAPS HOW DANNY HORNE AND TWO CO-WORKERS
discovered the fire Aug. is at E. B. Hamrick Hall at the Gardner-Webb
College Campus. Boiling Springs city and rural firemen put out the
blaze which began on the top story of the northern end of the building.
“T ou can put damage in the $30,000 to $40,000 range’” said Barry Hartis,
G-W business manager, this Tuesday. No one was hurt, (see story below).
Built in 1925 as a memorial to casualties of World
War I, E.B. Hamrick Hall is notable in
Gardner-Webb’s history - and the history of
suspicious fires. Twice in its 66 years the building
has burned from fires of undetermined origin.
Fire Chief Don McSwain has not termed the blaze
Aug. 18 arson, nor has he called in the county arson
squad; but ‘‘we’re not through with our investigation
by any means,” McSwain said.
McSwain questioned five juveniles about the fire,
and when asked who was investigating the fire
replied, ‘‘me and the police, mostly.”
For the moment, McSwain, the College, and the
insurance companies for the building are calling the
fire of ‘‘undetermined origin.” The phrase recalls
another fire at the building 44 years ago.
Originally called Memorial hall, construction on the
building began in spring, 1920. In 1925 the building
was completed, and housed male students and offices
for the Boiling Springs High School. In November,
1937, it burned.
‘‘One night about two or three o’clock I was
awakened to learn that the administrative building
was on fire,” wrote the late O P. Hamrick in his
history of the College. ‘‘My boys and I rushed down
10 see what we might rescue from my office in this
building, but it was impossible to get much out.”
10 make sure nobody runs off with the building,”
said the burly Packard, smiling and spitting a drop of
lobacco juice.
Three times in fifteen minutes Packard motioned to
pass by cars of spectators who had come to look at
the burned building. Forty four years after that
college student had passed by a similar scene, her
gi andson stood in front of Hamrick Hall-again with
burned walls cooling in the night air.
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The interior of the building was a total loss. Nor
vvas the the cause ever determined. ‘‘Like nearly all
fires it was a mystery how it caught,” wrote
Hamrick.
Renovation began in 1940 and was completed in
1942. At a 1943 dedication the building was renamed
for E.B. Hamrick, a Boiling Springs merchant who
had given food, money and land to the College
during the Depression years. Now the building is in
the process of being placed on the National Register
of Historic Places.
‘‘My grandma was a student at the College when it
burned the first time,” said Butch Packard, a campus
patrolman who guarded the entrance to the building
Tuesday night after the fire. The smell of-
woodsmoke was still strong in the air. ‘‘I’m just here
' IT ' .ri*
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Interior of Hamrick Hall immediately
after fire
PHOTOS BY LEM LYNCH
Off critical list
Eastman Y outh Upgraded
At Charlotte Hospital
PAGE 8
Doctors treating Scott Eastman, injured Aug. 21 in
a one vehicle wreck that killed a passenger, upgraded
his condition Monday from critical to stable.
Eastman, 17, of Boiling Springs, reportedly suffered
a fractured skull and chest injuries in the wreck that
also killed Nancy Rose, 15, of Shelby.
‘‘Scott talked with hie parents Sunday,” said a
friend of the Eastman family who had been with the
parents at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, where
Eastman is a patient. The friend said he was told by
doctors there that they are “Optimistic” for young
Eastman’s recovery, and that the doctors had told
Eastman’s parents of the change ,in their son’s
condition.
Eastman was upgraded from critical to unsatisfact
ory but stable condition at the respiratory intensive
care unit at Charlotte Memorial.
Eastman was carried to Charlotte within two hours
of the wreck last Friday when doctors at Cleveland
Memorial determined the extent of his head injuries,
said Capt. Julius Hoyle of the Boiling Springs Rescue
squad. “It took us 43 minutes,” Hoyle said of the
trin to Charlotte.
Both teenagers suffered head and chest injuries,
reported Hayle, when they were thrown from the
vehicle. The pick-up truck Eastman had been driving
apparently had rolled over both youths when Hoyle
arrived at the scene. Miss Rose died shortly after
arrival at Cleveland Memorial Hospital.
According to Highway Patrol reports, Eastman
apparently lost con troll of his vehicle while passing;
the pick-up truck then ran 30 feet up an
embankment, and rolled over twice falling back to
the road. The truck was totaled.
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