In the article entitled “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town,” New York Times reporter James McKinley, Jr., recounted the story of the attack by 18 boys and men who range in age from middle-schoolers to 27, on an elementary school girl in the small town of Cleveland, Texas.  The reporter set the tone of for the article, writing, “[H]ow could their young men have been drawn into such an act?”

“Drawn into?” Really? From the start of the article, suggestions like that one — that a school girl could have compelled a variety of boys and men to gang rape her — leaves me, as the mother of an 11-year-old girl, more than shocked and appalled.  As a journalist and political commentator, it shakes my faith in the profession I’ve loved since I was a high school girl.

Only a few paragraphs into the story, after reporting the allegations themselves, the piece goes on to include comments critical of the victim and her family from townspeople:

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

…

“Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands [where the alleged rape occurred] … said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record.”

The main focus on the story was on feeling sorry for the alleged perpetrators and casting the 11-year-old girl in the role of the villain.  That a seasoned journalist for perhaps the most well-regarded newspaper in the world thought it was legitimate to write a story that throws an elementary school girl under the bus for statutory rape, while leaving readers with the inference that the people who allegedly attacked her, or did nothing to stop those who did, were somehow the real victims makes my head spin.

A New York Times representative defended its article this way:

“Neighbors’ comments about the girl, which we reported in the story, seemed to reflect concern about what they saw as a lack of supervision that may have left her at risk,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for the paper. “As for residents’ references to the accused having to ‘live with this for the rest of their lives,’ those are views we found in our reporting.”

Finally, days after the report, came this, Gang Rape Story Lacked Balance:

While the story appeared to focus on the community’s reaction to the crime, it was not enough to simply report that the community is principally concerned about the boys and men involved – as this story seems to do. If indeed that is the only sentiment to be found in this community – and I find that very hard to believe – it becomes important to report on that as well by seeking out voices of professional authorities or dissenting community members who will at least address, and not ignore, the plight of the young girl involved.

When asked about whether the original New York Times story was a fair account, Julie Moos, Director of Poynter Online, an online journalism institute, said:

What the best journalism provides is context: information that confirms, contradicts, explains the history, circumstances and implications of a specific event that is the subject of direct and immediate reporting. When someone is covering rape or sexual assault, that context should include an understanding of cultural traps — coded language, wink-wink/nod-nod dynamics, the buried beliefs that affect what we notice and how we express it.

Under that definition, the New York Times failed miserably.

In addition to any context about a community or cultural traps or buried beliefs, there’s one more thing the reporter failed at, and that was to consider the age of the victim.  It’s bad enough to suggest that any victim of sexual violence beings it on herself (or himself).  But as the mother of a girl the same age as the victim, the idea that any reporter could in good conscience write a piece suggesting that an 11-year-old girl could have any role is appalling to me. I know full well that inside my own tomboy daughter there is a nascent flirty girl about to come out.  Eleven is a huge transitional age where hate of anything girly begins to transform into shy fascination. Lip gloss is all of sudden a welcomed gift rather than an embarrassment.  The fact a fifth-grader hasn’t yet gotten to the point where he or she can make completely reasoned decisions for themselves is exactly why we have statutory rape laws.

There is supposedly a follow-up story in the works at the New York Times.  That’s all well and good, but those who saw nothing wrong with the original story or its reporting should probably touch base with Poynter’s Moos for some refresher courses on telling the difference between journalism, sensationalism and what facts are relevant in any given news account.  Though in this time of things like Charlie Sheen, Bristol Palin and so many other non-stories that consume our attention, that’s probably too much to hope for.

UPDATE: Well, it looks like the New York Times isn’t the only news outlet that needs some refresher courses.

From a family perspective, Dan and his wife (who is the Bamberger family connection) provided a glimpse for our now ten-year-old PunditGirl into what it was like to spend time with a generation not many fourth-graders get to experience.  My husband’s parents passed away some years ago and mine are quite a bit younger than many grandparents we know!  Dan and his wife, who lived fairly close to us, always warmly welcomed PunditGirl.  So I’ve always been grateful to them, along with a few West Coast relatives, for giving her a connection with a generation she otherwise might not have known.

However, there is more for me to mourn about Dan’s passing than the loss of a family member.  Everyone in the world of journalism should be saddened not only by his death, but also by the missed opportunity to approach news coverage and commentary in the way that Dan always did — with unyielding integrity and a healthy skepticism toward corporate and governmental control of power and information.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I Was a Teenage Watergate Geek (I know that sounds like a semi-horror film that will never be successful at the box office!).  My primary inspiration and role models that steered me toward my first career in journalism and how I view how journalism should be practiced were those who took on President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, including the duo of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as well as Dan Schorr.  When Dan ended up high on Nixon’s enemies list, it was clear to me that Dan was a journalist’s journalist.

Because of those high profile examples, it never occurred to me at that point in my life, as a starry-eyed high school girl who wanted to charge into the world as a modern-day Nellie Bly, that reporters were anything less than bastions of truth-telling and scandal-revealing muckrakers who would dig to get to the facts, even when people like Nixon and his minions were trying to thwart the Fourth Estate, as well as the American people.

Yes, I was young and naive to think that all reporters shared the same principles and dedication to the truth as Dan and a few other Watergate superheroes — reporters willing to take on the establishment and challenge those who assumed it was their right to hide or distort important stories that had significant impact on our lives.

My journalism career was never as vaunted as Dan’s nor would I ever try to compare myself to him in any way as I write online political commentary today and try to get the word out that women in new media may well be this generation’s truth-tellers.  But from the time I was a wet behind the ears 17-year-old radio news reporter, through my days as a television journalism, to today where I try to earn a bit of a living as a freelance journalist and online politico, I try to hold myself to the standards that old school journos like Dan held himself to.

And as I watch those cable news shows that seem to provide so many people with their perspective on the world, I wonder what the land of news and information would look like today if just a handful of reporters would explore, dig and critically question rather than taking the information that is spoon-fed to them at events like the White House daily briefings or in corporate news releases.  I long to see, hear and read more of Dan’s version of journalism again — instead of tuning in to see the same loop of quick-hit stories played continually on our screens and shouting heads trying to pass themselves off as political analysts.

While some in the news establishment today might have considered Dan to be a contrarian, I will always look to him as someone who led by example — for journalists and news consumers alike — in showing us that covering and understanding the world, and those who run it, is more than just repeating verbatim what someone tells you and that true journalism calls for asking the hard questions, using critical and skeptical thinking, and being willing to be the one to say that the Emperor’s “new clothes” aren’t really clothes at all, and even going a step further by pointing out that maybe the Emperor even has ulterior motives for his actions.

I will truly miss seeing “cousin” Dan at family events.  I’ll always fondly remember watching our daughter have discussions with him about the president, how she wanted to teach him about the Harry Potter series, and the time she asked Dan and his wife Li if they would ever consider coming to her school for her “special friends” day.  But I’ll also miss his voice, — the one that he still used as an NPR news analyst until shortly before his death — his view of the world, and his example to me of what the life of a true journalist should look like.

Image courtesy CBS News

I’d like to think that our press corps has more important things to think about than where they get to sit at the daily White House press briefing.  Because, really, do questions get better answers from the Press Secretary depending on where the reporter is sitting in the room?  I have to agree with Jon Stewart (as I often do!)  — things have been going downhill over the years with the White House press corps and the latest skirmish over who takes the seat of the person who’s in permanent journalistic time out is a bit juvenile.

As someone who cut her journalistic teeth in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after learning about journalism at the alter of Woodward & Bernstein, I say it’s time to put some people back in who will ask the hard questions.

I like to ask the hard questions — like when I had the opportunity to be on a conference call for women bloggers with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week.  The topic was ostensibly to chat about his recent Nevada appearance with the First Lady and exercise, but I wanted to ask him about the financial regulation bill and how he reacted to the criticism about it not being tough enough to protect families finances. (I know we’re moms, but we can multi-task on issues, just like we do with our family’s schedules.)

So as the reporters from the “big” news outlets are jockeying for position, I’ve come up with my top ten reasons why I should get Helen Thomas’ seat in the White House press room — though, really, I’d take any seat because I can ask questions from anywhere in the room.  If Robert Gibbs is paying attention (and maybe I can get some support from Jon Stewart, as well)  here are ten excellent I should get a shot on behalf of the women in the blogosphere to have some face time with the other journalists at the White House:

10. I’m not 89.  Sure, by mentioning my love of “Woodstein” I’ve dated myself a bit, but I’m a lot younger than Helen Thomas, so hopefully no one would question the legitimacy of my comments because of my age.

9. I’ve already sat in Helen Thomas’ seat.  I was lucky to get a private White House tour about 15 years ago, including a visit to the White House press room.  I made sure someone took a picture of me in Thomas’ seat, so I know that it fits!

8. Many of my family members are Jewish , so if the White House is worried about what I’d say if asked a question about Israel, I think I’d be a little more diplomatic in how I phrased my personal opinions, even though I really think that should be none of their business.

7. I’m better looking than Ed Henry.

6. I have over 25 years of experience asking the hard questions, both as a reporter and as an attorney, so I’ll make sure to ask the important political questions.  I don’t care about whether the President smokes or what’s on his iPod, though I might have to see if I can get the lowdown on where Michelle shops for cute shoes!

5. I already have more journalism experience from my “old school” era than most of the people sitting in that press room now, so I won’t let access to the power brokers color the questions I ask.

4. After years of taking depositions, I know how to ask the follow-up questions that so many White House journalists seem to ignore.

3. I promise I’ll retire before I’m 89 and let someone else have a chance at that seat.  I have serious plans that involve a beach, a cabana boy & fruity drinks with little paper umbrellas.

2. I’ve seen the Oval Office and eaten the special Presidential M&Ms.  So I’m over the starry-eyed aspect of being in the White House.

1. Women and mothers who blog about politics are the next revolution in political coverage.  I’ll share that seat with other political moms who want to keep the seat warm with questions from all sides of politics.  We’ll get the real information, because everyone always answers a mom’s questions sooner or later!

Today she resigned from her job as a reporter for Hearst News Service as a result of these comments:

I don’t condone in any way what she said about calling for the Jewish people to get out of Palestine or the way that she said it.  It was a horrible and thoughtless comment and there should be consequences when someone who is supposed to be an objective journalist not only inserts themselves into a news story, but also does it in an offensive and inexcusable way.

But I have to ask — why does Helen have to “resign” but others who have done similar things get to keep their jobs?

Like, say, Rush Limbaugh?

Or Sean Hannity? 

Or Glenn Beck?

Or Bill O’ Reilly?

If forced resignation is good enough for someone who’s actually contributed to real journalism, then it ought to be good enough for those who work for “news” organizations with an agenda when they cross that kind of not-so-fine line of offensiveness.

But I suppose in this day and age of opinion news, as long as the offenders are making money for their bosses, it will get excused.   If Helen Thomas had been working for FOX News, she’d probably still have a job.

First, I *heart* Elizabeth Warren:

But I hate that damn groundhog.  Apparently he’s gone digital, though.

Tom Shales is wrong. Barbara Walters and Roger Ailes do not make a good couple.

I hate to break it to James O’Keefe, but the stars of investigative journalism were the real reporters,  Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, not the guys who broke into the Watergate hotel.  I think James got his history a little confused when he planned his “journalistic” trip to Senator Landrieau’s office.  And James, I don’t think you get to call committing a felony a “political prank.”

And the Harold Ford flip-flop dance continues.

If this is where we are in 2010 when it comes to permissible portrayals of women, I may have to live to be 237 before we’re treated with even a modicum of respect.

I am SO weary of men journalists (and some women) thinking they can get away with sexist slams of women in the name of political commentary.  The authors of Game Change, the long on gossip, short on real reporting book, apparently want us to believe that all the things we hated about the 2008 presidential campaign can be blamed on the women who were involved.

Yes, ladies — apparently everything you didn’t like in 2008 was all our fault!

Seriously?

The whole John Edwards fiasco was Elizabeth Edwards’ doing?  She bears more blame than her husband in his actions and the potential impact that could have had on our country? That’s just the stuff of fairy tales.  So I have to ask — where is the political or historical value to calling Elizabeth Edwards  names because maybe she wasn’t always nice to staffers.  Sarah Palin is described as Eliza Doolittle and there’s gossip aplenty in describing Cindy McCain and Hillary Clinton and tiffs with their spouses. And they call this insightful political commentary?

The only woman who escapes unscathed is Michelle Obama, but who’s going to bad mouth a sitting First Lady?  Wouldn’t want to have that come out and be in the doghouse with the President.

If this is what passes for political journalism or commentary today, I shudder to think what future generations would think of us if a copy of Game Change lands in some time capsule and ends up being the example of our political world in 2008.

The media has been worshiping at the alter of authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann since the book came out.  But at least there are two voices of reason in the media wilderness that I hope will get through to potential readers — Salon.com’s Joan Walsh and The Plain Dealer’s Connie Schultz.

Walsh really let those boys have it, and I was happy to see she didn’t pull any punches when Ed Schultz on MSNBC was in full  ‘Elizabeth-Edwards-is-to-blame-for-the-downfall-of-the-Democratic-party’ mode. Connie Schultz also weighed in with some plain talk at her column trying to get our focus back were it belongs — on real news and not on the gratuitous attacks on a betrayed wife who is battling cancer.

So what’s the motivation of these authors — two men with high profile journalism jobs who have decided that the villains in the 2008 campaign were the women, even if they weren’t the candidates?  That’s easy — money.  It’s not a good time to be selling books when the publishing industry is going downhill. So it’s not a stretch to think that a book that’s a cross between political commentary and Us Weekly is going to do better in the marketplace than one that actually provides perspective into an historical election.

Game Change isn’t journalism; it is gossip-mongering at its worst. Why do I say that?  Well, essentially the whole book was written on “deep background” — meaning that none of the sources would agree to be directly quoted and the authors would preserve the anonymity of the sources.  No one is accountable for what they said.  The sources could say or make up whatever they wanted.  Campaign staffers who were miffed or bruised over their treatment could vent about anyone with abandon and not suffer any backlash.

Deep background has its place.  After all, it did help Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein bring the Watergate scandal out in the open.  Given the nature of Game Change, I don’t think anyone will be confusing “Woodstein’s” All the President’s Men with “Halpermann’s” book or contribution to investigative reporting.

Between the attacks against almost all the women in the book and the male journos ooh-ing and ahh-ing over this piece of faux-journalism, it’s clear that women in the political world don’t stand a chance to escape the rampant sexism that is alive and well in the 21st century.

The real “game change?”  That might happen if we could lose the sexist rhetoric and drama.  Or maybe I could write a version of this story with another woman and take on the flip side!  I have no doubt we could come up with some irrelevant, misogynistic things to say about the guys, too.  Maybe a dose of their own sexist medicine would get some of these men to understand what they’re doing and why it’s time to let it go.

There are few things that truly make me lose it, but sensational media coverage of adoption is one of those things.  So bear with me as I explain my visceral reaction to the recent story of Anita Tedaldi, a mother who “gave back” her toddler son after only 18 months following his adoption, and why I was confounded that more people seemed to give her sympathy rather than asking how she could go from someone who openly criticized parents who would do that to being a mother who not only disrupted the adoption of her son, but also sought out the bright light of media attention after having done so.

For me, it’s this simple — there are no “give backs” when it comes to our children, no matter how they came into our families.  My husband and I are lucky to be the parents of the fabulous PunditGirl (nine going on 30!).  We adopted her from China almost nine years ago.

Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you

We thought we were prepared.  We dealt with a fabulous agency who made sure we knew that a good number of children adopted from institutions often have attachment and other emotional issues.  We read.  We listened.  We talked.  Mr. PunditMom already had experience as a dad to two biological daughters.  We thought we were ready.

We so weren’t.

To many people, PunditGirl presented as a very easy, outgoing, confident child (and she still does).  But she has always had serious underlying anxiety and attachment issues, which I’ve written about once in a while.  To say that spending years as a family in attachment therapy was challenging, hard work would be an understatement.  Not to mention the years of night terrors that PunditGirl experienced, my self-diagnosed depression that I was in denial about and all the times I wondered whether there was something I had done (or not done) that had contributed to her mental state, her worries and her fears.

So I understand that there can be difficult issues that arise in adoptions.  But once PunditGirl was our daughter, she was our daughter.  Period. And it was our job as her parents to make sure we did whatever we could humanly do to help her with whatever she needed.

Thankfully, today she is attached to our hips!  As for the anxiety, I think it will always be there and will be something she will have to learn to manage.  She still worries that if we get angry we will leave and in her own fourth-grade way she’s never quite sure if people who say they are her friends really are her friends — she truly believes they might just pick up and leave.

PunditGirl may not have have been “borned from me” as she used to say, but when we signed the papers stating, in English and Chinese, “Said minor child shall be [your] adopted child, with all the rights and privileges as though she had been born to [you] …“ that’s what we meant.  We didn’t mean in case there are no problems.  We didn’t mean we’d keep her until the road got rocky.  We meant we would be there for her and love her forever.

I’m not the only one who’s had a hard time managing their outrage over Tedaldi’s story of terminating the adoption of her son because, as she put it, he wasn’t “bonding” with her family.  The online international adoption community has been quite outspoken.  And in an e-mail, a friend of mine who is also a parent by adoption and biology reflected:

Parenting a child who was adopted  — one who was not a tiny infant at the time of adoption — is not the same as parenting biological children.  It’s requires different strategies and different thinking and great patience.

I understood that I was going to have to change my whole approach the first time I tried to comfort a weeping O. and found that nothing I did could comfort her.  I was used to being the main person to comfort our children, to picking up crying children, patting, stroking and murmuring love words to them and knowing that they would settle in to me and settle down.  But this was not the case with O. — I was the stranger who took her away from someone she loved.

I decided to be with O. “as if” we had a perfect attachment from day one even though that was not the case.  And I also decided that I would wait out the hard times in hopes of good times.

And because of that, one of the best moments in my life was when O. realized I was her mother.  Every time I think of it, it brings tears to my eyes.  But it was entirely different than my experience with my other children — just as wonderful and amazing, but different.

Apparently there was a time when Tedaldi felt the same way I do.  In 2008, Tedaldi wrote a piece entitled, We Can’t Give Back our Children or Husbands, criticizing a Dutch couple who had terminated the adoption of their Korean-born daughter (the site where it was originally posted, Military.com, has taken down that piece, but it’s excerpted here).

No child is perfect. And just because some children come to us through biology rather than adoption doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be seriously hard issues sometimes.  Maybe all the time.  Call me judgmental, but I don’t believe there is any reason to “give back” a child –  for me this is one of the few life issues that isn’t gray, but is black and white.

Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you

You can be sure that if the story that ran in the New York Times and on the Today show had been exactly the same, but Tedaldi’s son had been her biological child, we would still be hearing the negative outcry from parents around the world.  But apparently because Tedaldi’s son was adopted, many have expressed sympathy for her situation, some actually praising her for being brave.

The media often jump at stories that sensationalize families who are something other than a traditional biological family.  But aside from the fascination with stories like Tedaldi’s, I have to wonder why she even chose to go public?  It had to be hard for everyone involved.  Her husband apparently did not want her to reveal their saga and I’m sure her biological children are getting questions from others.  And how must her son’s new family be dealing with what I have to assume was extreme unwanted attention?

Who does this story help other than news outlets who like uber-sensational tales that will boost ratings and readership?  Well, it might help Tedaldi herself — it turns out, she’s writing a parenting book that’s due out this spring.  At least one person has told me I’m the overly-cynical one for even suggesting that Tedaldi’s new book is remotely related to her decision to come out and tell this story.  Maybe I am.  But I’m just saying that for some things, no publicity is bad publicity, and she’s now on the radar of high profile media outlets.  We can each draw our own conclusions as to her motivations.

My family is my family.  It’s not any worse, or any better, than others because our daughter came to us through adoption rather than biology.  I’m not any less of a parent and PunditGirl isn’t any less of a daughter. Since November is Adoption Awareness Month, I’d love to see more coverage of adoption that doesn’t  suggest that there’s something unnatural about it or that it’s not as permanent as biological relationships.  I know things will be better when I see stories where writers stop describing families in terms of their blood relations.  The New York Times and the Today Show can start there anytime.