How much information is too much?

“I’m disgusted by the story on your front page on Wednesday,” a woman told me on the phone recently.

“Which story is that?” I asked.

“The story about ‘Uncle David!” she said, clearly very upset.

I couldn’t figure out which story she was talking about, and there was certainly no story about an Uncle David on our front page or anywhere else. She became even more upset with me.

“The story on your front page!!!!!” she insisted.

I apologized, saying I didn’t know what story she was talking about.

“Are you not the editor of Kamloops This Week?!!!” she demanded.

Ah, then it became clear. She’d dialed the wrong number. We didn’t do a story about an Uncle David, but KTW did. Not wasting a phone call, she then gave me an earful about the insensitivity of newspapers in general.

After we concluded our conversation, I went looking for the story about Uncle David. After reading it, I was as appalled as the caller. No wonder she was angry, I thought. The story, coming out of a court case, described in graphic detail the sexual abuse of a young child, including exactly what doctors found when they examined her.

I won’t presume to know what’s behind the policies of another newspaper, and this isn’t about taking a shot at KTW, but I can tell you had that story come across my desk it would never have seen the light of day in The Kamloops Daily News. Instead, there would have been a conversation with the young reporter who wrote it, including an explanation of why we don’t print such rubbish.

I don’t fault the reporter, who was an intern here a couple of summers ago, because he doesn’t yet have the experience to think beyond the facts of his story to the impact of what he writes. But I would have told him that including repulsive details of the sexual abuse of a child does nothing to serve the public, and does much to hurt the family of the child, not to mention represents a gross invasion of the child’s privacy (regardless of the fact she wasn’t named).

We in the media have a responsibility to pay attention to community standards, and that story clearly was way outside the standards of this community. Indeed, very likely the standards of every community.

Reporters and editors make mistakes, goodness only knows. We don’t always get it right. But I like to think we do our best to balance a temptation to get into every nuance of a story with what’s really in the best interests of all concerned.