"TRANSFORMER" (Part Eight)

"Journalists must realize that stories having the most effect will be those about victims’ lives." (Joe Hight)

Mar 5

I am pleased to introduce a new series on the Massé Musings Substack platform: EXTRAORDINARY LIVES. Some of these individuals are famous, but most are not. Their lives are extraordinary because of the challenges they have faced, the impact they have had, and the special qualities they possess.

On the 10^th anniversary of receiving the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Award for Excellence in Journalism for “Transformer,” a chapter from my 2011 book, Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way*, I begin this new Substack series with extended profiles of a remarkable group of men and women—frontline reporters who cover conflicts, crimes, disasters and tragedies with courage and commitment.

*Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way features in-depth reporter profiles and analysis of traumatic news coverage worldwide. © 2011, Mark H. Massé (Continuum International Publishing Group now Bloomsbury)

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way (Paperback)

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way (Kindle)

“TRANSFORMER” (Part Eight)

“Journalists must realize that stories having the most effect will be those about victims’ lives.”

Time of Transition

In early 2007, president Joe Hight had listed three primary concerns for the Dart Center in the months ahead: (1) selecting his successor and electing an executive committee (EC) vice president and secretary, (2) deciding on the potential relocation of the Dart Center from the University of Washington, where it had been headquartered since 2000, and (3) hiring a consultant to conduct an audit of the Dart Center’s governance, management structure, operating principles and processes, and its long-term planning needs. This audit would affect issues such as the role of executive director Bruce Shapiro, a possible reorganization of the Center’s staff, and its operations worldwide, including expansion into Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

“They couldn’t make this easy on me, could they?” Hight jokes months later, but his laughter is short lived as he evaluates the key tasks facing him and the executive committee before his second two-year term ends. He wants to ensure a proper structure to enhance future growth, but he’s also committed to preserving the Dart Center’s mission of being accessible to the “frontline journalist.”

On a warm July 2007 morning, Hight sips cups of hot apple cider (never tea or coffee), as he works at his desk still wearing his suit coat. He routinely multitasks, checking phone messages and e-mail while working his Blackberry. His two-room office overlooks the entrance to the sleek twelve-story dark metallic and tinted glass headquarters building (“the tower”) that dominates the adjoining low-rise commercial property on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. His office walls are lined by framed land- scape photos of his native state, including beautiful sunsets and a decorated downtown Guthrie at Christmas. The most eye-catching photo is of a grizzled cowboy in leather chaps and a purple shirt at some rundown Western storefront, accompanied by his trusty white horse. Nearby sits an old blue- and-red Pepsi machine.

Joe is like a burr, a sticker, Frank Ochberg says, noting Hight’s persistent, detail-driven operating style. Hight doesn’t argue with that characterization. In fact, he gets a kick out of being called “a burr.” Although his years as president of the Dart Center have been “gratifying,” he says it has also been “exhausting” balancing that responsibility, his managing editor job at the Oklahoman, and his family life.

Charlotte Lankard says that Joe Hight will call her on occasion to discuss matters on the job or at home, but the two have not participated in a formal therapy session. Not everyone needs that kind of intervention, Lankard says, noting how impressed she has been for a dozen years with Hight’s “equilibrium,” his sense of humor, and steadiness under pressure. She believes his strong family life centers him, as does his devout religious faith.

During the next few months, Hight would rely primarily on his weekly conference calls with Ochberg, Shapiro, and Beth Frerking, the vice president who had replaced Barb Monseu on the executive committee in 2006, to advance the Dart Center agenda. On average, Hight had been on the road a few days a month for four years, performing his presidential duties, delivering speeches, and conducting training seminars. But in the spring of 2007, he was thankful to have more time to spend at home with his family, attending his daughters’ musical recitals, poetry readings, and athletic events.

He was also deeply involved in a major design overhaul at the Oklahoman that would affect not only the future look of the newspaper and its multi-platform presence, but also how stories are written in print and online (e.g., greater use of narrative leads in print and standardizing the inverted pyramid story structure online). These were substantive changes that Hight and others believed were vital to retaining readership and advertising dollars and maintaining the newspaper’s leadership position as an information source in the Oklahoma City metro area.

But Joe Hight also knew that tragedy and trauma followed no schedule. Unexpected horror, sorrow, and loss could strike a community without warning or reason. So it was on April 16, 2007, when a gunman (named Seung-Hui Cho) killed thirty-two students and professors, then himself at VTU. As Hight noted in an e-mail two days later, the campus killing spree would become the worst mass murder in US history (by a single gunman) and second only to the 1996 Port Arthur, Australia, massacre in recent world history. He wrote that journalists covering the latest tragedy should remember that their reporting affects the families of victims, the survivors, and the community: “Finally, journalists must realize that stories having the most effect will be those about victims’ lives, instead of those telling how they died.”

On Sunday May 20, 2007, Hight was moderator at a closing session of the National Writers Workshop (NWW), cosponsored by the Wichita Eagle newspaper and the Poynter Institute, in Wichita, Kansas. An estimated two hundred fifty people came to hear Robert (Bobby) Bowman, the clean-cut, enthusiastic 21-year-old managing editor of the Collegiate Times (CT) student newspaper at Virginia Tech. The young journalist, majoring in industrial systems engineering, impressed Hight and others as he recounted the drama on campus and in the newsroom during the hours and days after the shootings.

“We did a good job of covering it not only for the victims but especially for their families,” said Bowman. “It was close to all of us.”

At the NWW session, Joe Hight spoke of the reporting challenges facing journalists who live in and love a community that has been assailed by violence. After the event, Hight continued to receive e-mails from Bowman for several weeks. He told him he would come to Virginia Tech, if Bowman and the CT student journalists ever needed visits from him or other Dart Center officials. Hight believed that Bowman, despite never covering a violent incident before April 2007, did several things to take care of himself during and after the crisis, including debriefing with fellow staff members and the newspaper adviser, and by getting away and spending time with family when the term ended.

But Hight emphasized that colleges need to think seriously about what situations they’re sending their inexperienced student journalists into when covering violence, tragedy, or trauma. “I think it is becoming increasingly important that college journalism programs incorporate trauma training into their curricula as standard for anyone receiving a degree,” Hight said, noting that nationally only a few schools offered trauma journalism courses. One encouraging sign, however, was that dozens of journalism educators from across the country had attended two Dart Center-sponsored weekend seminars at Louisiana State University and the University of Oklahoma earlier in the year.

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