The best journalism after the Boston bombings

(Cottone/Boston Globe photo)

(Foley, Sdoia/Boston Globe)



(Richard)



(Fenway Park on Saturday)

Given all the embarrassing moments for the media since Monday, I would be remiss if I didn’t share some of the best journalism, in my mind, that has been offered over the past week that reflects on the Boston bombings.

The first comes from New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, a former longtime foreign correspondent who has witnessed numerous bombing scenes overseas. Friedman salutes the evolving resolve of Americans since 9/11 in the aftermath of a terrorist attack:

“Let’s schedule another Boston Marathon as soon as possible. Cave dwelling is for terrorists. Americans? We run in the open on our streets — men and women, young and old, new immigrants and foreigners, in shorts not armor, with abandon and never fear, eyes always on the prize, never on all those “suspicious” bundles on the curb. In today’s world, sometimes we pay for that quintessentially American naïveté, but the benefits — living in an open society — always outweigh the costs.

“Terrorists know that, of course, and feed on it. The explosives were reportedly packed into six-liter pressure cookers, tucked into black duffel bags and then left on the ground. That is the signature of modern terrorism: to turn routine items from our lives into bombs: the shoe, the backpack, the car, the airplane, the cellphone, the laptop, the garage door opener, fertilizer, the printer, the pressure cooker — so that everything and everyone becomes a source of suspicion.
“This can pose a much greater threat to our open society than the Soviet Red Army ever did — if we let it — because this kind of terrorism attacks the essential thing that keeps an open society open: trust.

                                           ***** 

The next piece is a Times Op-Ed by author Dennis Lehane, perhaps best known for his novel “Mystic River.” Lehane salutes his beloved hometown of Boston and their resolve during this tragedy:

“Bostonians don’t love easy things, they love hard things — blizzards, the bleachers in Fenway Park, a good brawl over a contested parking space. Two different friends texted me the identical message yesterday: They messed with the wrong city. This wasn’t a macho sentiment. It wasn’t ‘Bring it on’ or a similarly insipid bit of posturing. The point wasn’t how we were going to mass in the coffee shops of the South End to figure out how to retaliate. Law enforcement will take care of that, thank you. No, what a Bostonian means when he or she says ‘They messed with the wrong city’ is ‘You don’t think this changes anything, do you?’

“Trust me, we won’t be giving up any civil liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this. We won’t cancel next year’s marathon. We won’t drive to New Hampshire and stockpile weapons. When the authorities find the weak and terminally maladjusted culprit or culprits, we’ll roll our eyes at whatever backward ideology they embrace and move on with our lives.”

***** 

As the media succumbs to the urge to psychoanalyze the Chechen-influenced Tsarnaev brothers, an eye-opening column on the relatively obscure central Asian website registan.net, a site that is highly critical of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, offers several subtleties and detailed caveats as reporters try to piece together the motive for these attacks.
I came across this column by Matthew Kupfer thanks to Dylan Ratigan’s blog on Politico.
Here’s a little taste:

“I’m not surprised that the press turned to the alleged bombers’ social media profiles to gather information on them. Social media offers a look into how a person chooses to represent himself online. It can tell us a lot about a person, or it can tell us very little. It all depends on the account, the amount of information, and that information’s veracity. In situations like this, it can be a good source of information if used properly.

“… In attempting to place Tamerlan and Dzhohar Tsarnaev into the mold of the stereotypical “Islamic fundamentalist bomber,” the media used several facts and claims about the brothers that, in my opinion, don’t ring true or were taken out of the Chechen and post-Soviet context and, thus, were misunderstood. I would like to draw attention to several such facts (certainly not all) and clarify them. While these details may seem small, they helped to form an image of the Tsarnaev brothers in the public’s mind, simplifying complex motivations that may exist behind this attack. Words have connotations beyond their direct meanings, and so the choice of something as small as the wrong word can change how we perceive the facts.

 “… My point in highlighting these mistakes and de-contextualized facts in the media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing is to emphasize that much information has been misunderstood due to lack of knowledge about the Caucasus or Russia and a desire to present the suspects in a framework easily understandable to the American public

“… But we will never even begin to answer the important questions surrounding this bombing and to see the subtleties of this story if our media tries to fit each terrorist into an easily understandable, two-dimensional framework.”

                                          *****

The Boston Globe demonstrated outstanding journalism throughout this unprecedented 5-day crisis for their city. Today, Jenna Russell offers a harrowing, detailed account of what two first-responders, a veteran firefighter and a young police officer, experienced at the scene:

“Foley, 58, a Dorchester native and 34-year veteran from Engine Company 21 on Columbia Road, saw a woman who had taken off her belt. ‘Gimme the belt,’ he barked, his instincts taking over. ‘I need more belts,’ he told the dazed spectators around him, kneeling down to cinch one tight around a young man’s badly injured leg.

“Cottone, 27, a native New Yorker who fell in love with Boston as a student at Northeastern, bent over the woman on the ground, her leg also badly damaged, whose bleeding was proving harder to stem. She pulled the woman’s I.D. out and scanned the card for her name: Roseann (Sdoia).

"I can’t feel my leg, said the woman on the ground.

"‘I swear it’s there,’ Cottone told her, taking her hand, calling her by name, resolving to give her hope, no matter how unlikely that her leg could be saved. ‘I swear on my life, your leg is there.’”

***** 

Finally, Michael Daly of The Daily Beast contributed aheart-breaking story about the family of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old killed in the first blast. Why is that things like this seem to happen to some of the nicest people?

Here’s a few excerpts:

“The boy’s mother, Denise, and his 7-year-old sister, Jane, had been seriously injured in the Monday bombing. Jane, a tomboy who had won a kid’s race the day before the marathon, lost a leg. She might have lost her life were it not for the immediate assistance from first responders

“… Martin’s father, Bill Richard, is credited as a driving force behind reviving the (Dorchester) square, complete with restaurants, offices, and even a new train station. He has been joined in this effort by his wife, who is also the librarian at the nearby Neighborhood House Charter School.

“… The kitchen of Martin Richard’s mom was a place of Irish song and laughter and all that killers hate. The kids played ball and hockey out back and rode bikes out front, with Jane trying so hard to be like Martin. The whole family was always volunteering for something that made the neighborhood a little better: clean-ups, benefit cookouts, Little League.”