Getting around the story

Several articles today circumvent obstacles to bring attention to their stories. A little ingenuity goes a long way, it seems.

A New York Times article draws attention to President Bush’s quiet veto yesterday of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Since the President vetoed the bill ceremoniously, the article used his visit to a Pennsylvania town to discuss the veto with the community as the event around which to base itself. This is a convenient structure for the reporter, as it provides a way to express public opinion through the opinions voiced by the people at the town-hall-style meeting. Towards the end of the article, the reporter did well to mention that the issue would surely resurface among 2008 presidential candidates and that already, the House is trying to drum up enough votes to defeat the veto.

The Washington Post, too, finds a way to circumvent lack of access to a story. The nuns evicted from their Santa Barbara convent, which is being sold to raise money to pay victims of sexual abuse by priests, were not allowed to make statements to the press about their situation. The article shows resourcefulness by quoting the biological sister of one of the Sisters of Bethany, who shared the views of Sr. Angela Escalera. The article also stays focused on the current situation without dredging up a lot of salacious details about the abuse scandal itself. The focus here is, as it should be, on those members of the Catholic community who are now feeling the effects of the scandal: the evicted nuns and the outraged parishioners.

While WHDH-TV (Channel 7) was barred by a Suffolk County Superior Court judge from releasing developing information about the deaths of two firefighters in West Roxbury in August, The Boston Globe reports the news by sharing Channel 7’s coverage. An anonymous source said that autopsy reports reflect that firefighter Paul Cahill had a blood alcohol content level of .27 at his death and Warren Payne showed traces of cocaine in his system when he died while fighting a fire at a Chinese restaurant over the summer. While the article explains that Channel 7 claimed an anonymous source for this information, it does not say how the Globe received the information and the ability to publish it, although it seems they were not alone, as other newspapers (including The Patriot Ledger) are running the story and WCVB-TV aired comments from the families of the victims.