{"id":6154,"date":"2013-05-21T17:53:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=6154"},"modified":"2013-05-21T17:53:39","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:53:39","slug":"choosing-sensitive-details-in-one-sandy-hook-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2013\/05\/choosing-sensitive-details-in-one-sandy-hook-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Sensitive Details in One Sandy Hook Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sandy<\/a>

Photo by Gina Jacobs \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Reporter Naomi Zeveloff \u201906<\/b> of the <\/i>Jewish Daily Forward reflects on interviewing the mother of the youngest victim in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and on writing a complicated portrait of grief.<\/i> This piece was originally commissioned for The Dart Society, an association of journalists who cover violence and tragedy.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Nine days after her son, Noah, was killed in the Newtown shootings, I interviewed Veronique Pozner for a story about the family\u2019s grieving process for the Forward<\/i>, the national Jewish news organization. The family had just finished observing the official Jewish mourning period, called shiva<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I spent over an hour with Veronique; she talked me through her experience on December 14 and the days that followed. Her story was filled with moving and harrowing details: her dream of wandering an abandoned building calling out for Noah, her meeting with President Obama at a vigil at the local high school and her decision to get a tattoo of angel wings and Noah\u2019s name the day after his death. The details that stuck with me the most \u2014 and the details which I felt most conflicted about putting in print \u2014 were Veronique\u2019s descriptions of the damage to her son\u2019s body. He was shot multiple times; she told me that his jaw and his left hand were mostly gone.<\/p>\n

There were certain things Veronique wanted for Noah\u2019s funeral. She felt that his body had suffered too many indignities already; she was adamant that he not be autopsied. She wanted him to be buried with a Jewish prayer shawl and with a clear stone with a white angel inside \u2014 an \u201cangel stone\u201d \u2014 in each of his hands. Veronique was only able to put the stone in his right hand because the left was \u201cnot altogether there,\u201d she told me, crying for the first time in our interview. She asked the funeral director to put the other one in the left hand spot. \u201cI made him promise and he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veronique told me that Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy visited her in the funeral home, and she brought him to see Noah\u2019s open casket. I asked her why it was important for her and for the governor to see Noah\u2019s body. \u201cI needed it to have a face for him,\u201d she said. \u201cIf there is ever a piece of legislation that comes across his desk, I needed it to be real for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veronique continued on in this vein for a few minutes. But I still felt that I didn\u2019t understand why she, as a mother, chose to see Noah\u2019s body, so I asked her again: Why, for her? \u201cI owed it to him as his mother, the good, the bad, the ugly,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is not up to me to say I am only going to look at you and deal with you when you are alive, that I am going to block out the reality of what you look like when you are dead. And as a little boy, you have to go in the ground. If I am going to shut my eyes to that I am not his mother. I had to bear it. I had to do it.\u201d Several family members also chose to view Noah\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Then, unprompted by me, Veronique described what she saw: \u201cWe all saw how beautiful he was. He had thick, shiny hair, beautiful long eyelashes that rested on his cheeks. He looked like he was sleeping. But the reality of it was under the cloth he had covering his mouth there was no mouth left. His jaw was blown away. I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don\u2019t talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. They were brutalized. And that is what haunts me at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

After I left Newtown, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about this part of my conversation with Veronique and I wondered whether or not I should put it in the story. On the one hand, she had made it clear that she wanted the public \u2014 or at least, public officials \u2014 to have a picture of the damage inflicted on the children\u2019s bodies. But on the other hand, I worried about sharing what seemed to be the most personal, most painful details. Would I be unnecessarily exposing the family? Were these details gratuitously violent? Would I be shocking readers instead of informing them?<\/p>\n

I wrote the story, and included the details about the damage to Noah\u2019s body just the way Veronique had described them, in the context of his funeral preparations, in the second half of the story:<\/p>\n

The family placed stuffed animals, a blanket and letters to Noah into the casket. Lastly, Veronique put a clear plastic rock with a white angel inside \u2014 an \u201cangel stone\u201d \u2014 in his right hand. She asked the funeral director to place an identical one in his left, which was badly mangled.<\/p>\n

Just before the ceremony, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy came to the funeral home to pay his respects. Veronique took him by the arm and brought him to the casket. Noah\u2019s famously long eyelashes \u2014 which she spoke about in her eulogy \u2014 rested lightly on his cheeks and a cloth covered the place where the lower half of his face had been. \u201cI just needed it to be real for [the governor],\u201d she says. \u201cThis was a live, warm, energetic little boy whose life was snuffed out in a fraction of a second because our schools are so defenseless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the Forward<\/i> typically eschews quote verification, I offered it to Veronique, thinking she would want to know about this part of the story. I called her brother \u2014 my liaison to the family \u2014 the day before the story went to print and asked him if she\u2019d like to speak with me about the article. Through him, Veronique declined.<\/p>\n

At this point, I felt that we could ethically print the description. But I wanted to double check with my editor, Jane Eisner. I wrote her an email that evening: \u201cDo you think the detail about his jaw being blown away is too much?\u201d She responded: \u201cIt\u2019s important to show the true violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

One problem remained: we hadn\u2019t verified the fact that Gov. Malloy viewed Noah\u2019s body. Since we were on a tight deadline, we removed that detail when we published the story online, and we added it back in after I had checked it with the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

After the story went to print online, I was surprised that the dozens of people who Tweeted, commented and emailed about the story didn\u2019t mention our inclusion of these horrific details. Then Salon.com published a brief write-up of the story, highlighting the sensitive portion: \u201cin a harrowing description of Noah\u2019s corpse laid to rest, some idea is given of the damage the assault weapon wrought on his young body.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Salon\u2019s Facebook page, one person wrote: \u201cI didn\u2019t need to read that. I would not have published it either.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many others defended our choice:<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should read this, as hard as it is to do so, to see the damage these guns inflict \u2013 psychologically and physically\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf nothing else can bring you to tears, the phrase \u2018a cloth covered his face where his lower jaw had been\u2019 will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot publishing allows people to gloss over the horrible details. Like banning photos of coffins coming back from the war. If people want to keep these guns available, the effects shouldn\u2019t be hidden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though I have not spoken with Veronique since the story went to print, I have a feeling that she would agree with these comments. I now believe that she told me about what happened to Noah\u2019s body so that I would use it in the story, and give the public a clear picture of the brutality of the Sandy Hook shooting.<\/p>\n

To view the original story online, go to: http:\/\/www.dartsociety.org\/cms\/choosing-sensitive-details-in-one-sandy-hook-story\/<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reporter Naomi Zeveloff \u201906 of the Jewish Daily Forward reflects on interviewing the mother of the youngest victim in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and on writing a complicated portrait of grief. This piece was originally commissioned for The Dart Society, an association of journalists who cover violence and tragedy.\u00a0 Nine days after her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-6154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2013","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}