Early in my professional journalism career, I was faced with an ethical dilemma, which I will get to soon enough.
When I got my first job out of college – I was a May 1984 graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism – I found myself in Pike County, about 90 miles north of St. Louis, working for the Louisiana Press-Journal. I started work at the newspaper’s office in October of that year.
I was hired to be the sportswriter while assisting a bit on the news side. I don’t remember what split I was told I would have, something like 75 percent sports, 25 percent news, but it ended up being about 30 hours of sports coverage and 20-plus hours a week on news. We not only wrote the content, but also took the photos, developed and printed the film in a darkroom and I helped to lay out – or design the pages of, in non-newspaper terms – the twice-weekly paper on Mondays and Thursdays. I regularly worked on Saturdays or Sundays, sometimes both.
Because I was the low man on the newsroom’s totem pole, I also delivered papers. Not door-to-door – it wasn’t that bad – but the truck of my car was filled with bundles of newspapers that I was to drop off at various homes of paperboys and at stores that sold the Press-Journal.
It was a great deal of work, but it was a good indoctrination into the newspaper business.
The paper covered all of Pike County, which I would say is more rural than Jefferson County. The other major towns were Bowling Green and Clarksville (not the one popularized in the Monkees’ first pop hit, “Last Train to Clarksville” in 1966).
The ethical dilemma? I’m coming to that.
As I recall, I was going to enjoy a rare Friday night off from covering sports. I was probably a month or so into the job, so it was probably in late November, between the high school football season and before basketball started in earnest. For some reason, none of the three high schools I covered had games that particular Friday evening.
The hands on the clock in the newsroom were slowly making their move to the end of the business day at 5 p.m., counting down my freedom.
Just my luck, at about 4:45 p.m., my editor fielded a call from a farmer about a potential human interest photo opportunity. The farmer told the editor that one of his cows got its head stuck in an old tire that was laying around the place. My editor said, “Yeah, that sounded like something we would want as a stand-alone picture for the paper.”
He hung up, turned to me and told me to get to the farm, giving me some vague and likely convoluted directions.
I was looking forward to my Friday night off from work. Hearing the directions to the farm, I knew I was in for at least a half-hour drive each way – if I didn’t get lost.
Oh, and it had started raining, of course. I feared that my 1969 Buick Skylark (not to be confused by anyone with a Jeep) had at least a fair chance of getting stuck somewhere to or from the farm.
Still, dutifully, I hopped in the car.
By the time I arrived, I’m guessing it was 5:30 or so because it was already pretty dark. The rain never let up. I stepped out of the Skylark and into mud. At least I hoped it was mud.
The farmer was waiting for me. As soon as we were close enough to hear each other, he said he was sorry, but the cow had pulled its head out of the tire shortly before my arrival.
“If you’d only gotten here 10 minutes ago…” he informed me.
I was not happy, of course. The start of my night off had been delayed by at least an hour and I now had no chance at a photo of a cow with its head stuck in a tire to bring back to the paper.
Hence my ethical dilemma.
I started turning the situation around in my head. How bad would it be if we re-created the photo op? Who would know, other than the farmer and me, and of course, the cow, but I was pretty certain at least two of us wouldn’t tell anyone. The silence of the farmer was a toss-up.
I offered the idea to the farmer as a joke. If he would hold onto his cow’s head, I told him, I would be willing to shove the tire back on her and take the picture.
Now, I don’t know if I would have gone through with it. I was so frustrated at that moment I would have considered it, but I don’t know if I actually would have done it. I was 22, had an open Friday evening ahead of me and had gone through a lot just to travel to the assignment.
All I remember is that the farmer declined the offer. There would be no staged photo because he would not allow me even to try to shove the tire back on the cow’s head.
Over the years, I have had many potentially wonderful stories fall through. I have had people tell me that their relative or friend had done something stunningly newsworthy, only to have the subject decline to be interviewed.
I have had at least one situation where, if the fates had intervened, I might have been the first reporter at the scene of a tragedy of national importance, but only to learn later I was driving a short distance away, oblivious to what had happened.
However, not getting the photo of the cow with its head stuck in a tire has bothered me more than anything during my decades as a reporter.
What would you have done?
