Photo by Clara Pettem
James E. O'shea
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Photo by Clara Pettem
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James E. O'shea
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O'Shea warns of
'journalistic boomerang'
By Clara Pettem
A malnourished child huddles on a urine-stained mattress in a concrete dump. A Chicago Tribune reporter looking into children's charities buys the child some medicine.
Soon, the reporter is caught in a legal tangle with the charity.
James E. O'Shea, deputy managing editor for news at the Tribune, calls the intimidation that investigative reporters face the "journalistic boomerang."
O'Shea delivered the annual Ralph L. Crosman Memorial Lecture in CU's Old Main Chapel on March 1. The lecture, titled "The Journalistic Boomerang: Reporters Face New Intimidation Tactics after the Food Lion Case," addressed the issues of modern investigative reporting.
The Crosman Lecture is a memorial to the School's first director, Ralph L. Crosman, who worked as a teacher and industry critic at CU for 27 years. His lectures in the mid-1940s raised concerns about the role of mass media in contemporary society.
"Today's reporters get in people's space. They write about subjects that were once considered taboos," O'Shea said.
O'Shea cited the Food Lion case, in which two ABC reporters posed as employees at a Food Lion grocery store in California to investigate alleged poor food conditions. Food Lion sued ABC over its reporters' methods.
"The challenge focused totally on ABC's newsgathering techniques and not on the rancid (food) report," O'Shea said, adding that the Tribune plans to do more investigative reporting and is not intimidated by the challenges.
In May 1997, Tribune reporters traveled throughout the world to find out what really happens to the money that goes to children's charities. They looked at charities such as Children International where a sponsor pays a monthly fee to help one child in particular and also receives progress reports.
"We did not disclose we were reporters, mainly because no one asked," O'Shea said. "But you tend to attract a lot of attention when you're walking into a village looking for a kid."
To address this, the reporters wrote what they were doing in a letter, and when asked why they wanted to see a child, they said it was to deliver the letter.
What they found was discouraging.
O'Shea had sponsored an 11-year-old boy in southern Mozambique, and he was told by the charity that the boy was well-behaved and helped with chores. But the boy had dropped out of school, did not help with chores and hardly knew what the charity was.
"Some children got supplies, but not much. Some of the clothes fit; some didn't," O'Shea said as he showed a slide of a young girl holding a pair of pants that came up to her neck.
"One couple received letters for three years from a boy who was dead," he said. "These greetings from the grave were written by Save the Children staff members."
As expected, the Tribune's investigative report was attacked. O'Shea received a series of letters from Children International that claimed the reporters lied, manipulated the facts and were unprofessional.
"It was a drumbeat of allegations," O'Shea said.
Children International asked to be left out of the story, but the Tribune refused.
"Just because the boomerang effect makes investigative reporting harder, that is no reason to back away," O'Shea said. "Investigative journalism is one of the best ways newspapers can establish themselves because the readers want it."
"Readers expect us to be watchdogs. If we back off that commitment, they will back off of us."
In answer to a question after the lecture, O'Shea was asked what smaller organizations could do to fend off the boomerang effect.
"Tough it out and run the story," he said. "The only thing you can do is not cave in to the intimidation technique."
O'Shea's message was received well by the audience of School faculty, students and alumni.
"He is not only a journalist, but a genuine public servant," said Associate Professor Len Ackland, director of the School's Center for Environmental Journalism who teaches investigative reporting.
While on campus, O'Shea also spoke to journalism classes about careers and the Chicago Tribune.
"Get experience and good clips," he advised students. "When you go to an interview, be open, honest and passionate about what you're doing."