The routine police report lands on Sarah Daniels's desk, and she reads the bare facts: a 14-year-old boy has been killed by a car while riding his bicycle. She feels a terrible tug of sympathy, followed by the realization that her job entails telling the story, flushing out the facts. She finds the family's telephone number and punches in the digits.

"Making that telephone call was the hardest thing I had ever had to do," Daniels recalls of the 2004 accident. She asked the boy's mother if the family would like to have an obituary in the local newspaper. "I was surprised when she said yes and invited me to go to their home to talk with her," Daniels recalls. The reporter's next step was to contemplate the ethical position of her role in the story.

Daniels says she thinks that in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics "every principle is equally important and none should be minimized or ignored." With those standards in mind, she applied the rule to "Minimize Harm" in approaching the accident story. Within that principle is this practice: Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance. Daniels says she considered the humanity and anguish of the family at every step of her reporting process.

"People deal with grief in different ways. I respected this family's bereavement enough to know that it was their story, not mine. Whatever they had wanted at that time would have been the deciding factor in how I would proceed."

Accepting the invitation to visit the boy's home, Daniels followed cues from his mother during their conversation, eventually asking if the family might want more than a routine obituary. "I think the family looked at the opportunity to tell their son's story as a kind of memorial to him, as a way of sharing with the community what a neat and talented and loving kid he had been," Daniels says.

By being present as a respectful and compassionate person first and as a professional journalist second, Daniels assimilated the details that would serve as a written memorial for the family. The story also became part of the package that won her the Rookie of the Year award in the 2004 New York Press Association's Better Newspaper contest. But she wasn't thinking of prizes the day she sat with the deceased boy's mother.

When the interview ended, she returned to her car and simply sat for a long time, letting the impact of the story settle in her mind and heart before returning to the office to begin to write. "I was blown away by how generous the family was with me throughout the entire process," Daniels says.

The story in the Brighton-Pittsford Post Oct. 6, 2004 ran with the full support of Alex Buettner's family, and the headline reflected his mother's words: "Grief is the price for love."

Daniels says it's good for journalists to remember that they are dealing with human beings on the emotional as well as the intellectual level. No deadline or byline can trump simple consideration or compassion. No story is more important than maintaining professional standards. "I go through a mental ethics check list with every story I write," she says.

By Linda Loomis
Write her at lloomis@oswego.edu.