By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Tag: Jessica Rinaldi

Poynter’s Tom Jones renders a nuanced verdict on Kevin Cullen’s ethical lapse

Poynter media columnist Tom Jones has weighed in with a lengthy commentary about Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen’s decision to sign a legally required form that a terminally ill woman needed in order to proceed with her physician-assisted suicide — a story that he was reporting on, and that was published by the Globe last Friday.

Jones’ conclusion is reasonable, and it’s helped me think through my own conflicted beliefs about what has unfolded. Jones’ bottom line: Cullen committed a serious breach of ethics in going along with Lynda Bluestein’s request, which I’m sure we can all agree on; and Globe executive editor Nancy Barnes made the right call in publishing the story anyway and appending a detailed editor’s note to it. Jones writes:

Two things can be true at the same time: We can acknowledge that Cullen certainly crossed journalistic lines. He should not have signed the form. Even the Globe and Cullen don’t disagree.

But we can also acknowledge that Globe readers benefited from this compelling story and, more importantly, that it would have been a shame had the piece been dropped. The Globe essentially owed it to Bluestein and her family to publish their deeply personal story.

I’m think I agree, but what a mess. Sadly, Cullen’s lapse of judgment has cast a pall over the story, which features not just strong reporting and writing by Cullen but also vibrant photography by Pulitzer Prize winner Jessica Rinaldi. What should have been a triumph of narrative storytelling and photojournalism that helped our understanding of a difficult topic has instead turned into a case study of journalistic ethics. After all, one of the four principles of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics is “Act Independently.” The code explains: “Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.”

One question I’ve had from the start is when Barnes found out about Cullen’s actions. According to the Globe, Bluestein asked Cullen and a member of a documentary film crew to sign the document last August; Bluestein died Jan. 4. Without citing a source, Jones writes that “it’s believed that senior editors, including Barnes, weren’t aware of that fact until months later — when Cullen turned in his story after Bluestein’s death in January.”

Cullen declined Jones’ request for comment, but Barnes talked with him, saying in part: “We considered the fact that Lynda and her family opened their homes to us, opened their lives, gave themselves to us for months on end, and trusted us with an incredible amount of access. So that weighed on us, too.… She trusted us to tell her story.”

What makes the entire situation especially fraught is that Cullen was suspended for three months in 2018 after it was learned that he’d made up details in public comments — but not in his work for the Globe — about his involvement in covering the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Cullen has been a welcome voice in the Globe for many years, but all any of us can say about this latest ethical lapse is: What could he have been thinking?

Earlier:

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A few thoughts on the 2016 Pulitzers

Congratulations to my former Beat the Press colleague Farah Stockman and to Jessica Rinaldi, both of whom won Pulitzer Prizes earlier today for their work for the Boston Globe.

Rinaldi won the Feature Photography award for her photo series of Strider Wolf, a boy in rural Maine trying to overcome a harrowingly dysfunctional upbringing. Amazingly, Rinaldi was also one of two runners-up in the same category for her photos of a Massachusetts drug addict caught up in the opioid epidemic.

Stockman, who is now a reporter with the New York Times, won in Commentary for a series on the legacy of Boston’s school-desegregation turmoil in the 1970s and ’80s. Stockman’s award is the third fourth Pulitzer recognition in a row for the Globe‘s editorial pages: last year Katie Kingsbury won for editorials that shed light on the harsh world of restaurant work; in 2014 Dante Ramos was a runner-up for writing about how to revive Boston’s less-than-vibrant nightlife; and in 2013 Juliette Kayyem was a finalist in Commentary.

The Globe covers its Pulitzer wins here.

Among the other Pulitzer winners, I was especially pleased to see the Washington Post win the National Reporting award for its deep investigation of fatal shootings of civilians by police. Not only is it an important topic, but it was based on a meticulously detailed database that the Post built in-house.

Last October, FBI director James Comey lamented that the Post and the Guardian, which assembled a similar database, had better data on police-involved shootings than law-enforcement agencies. “It is unacceptable that the Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper from the UK are becoming the lead source of information about violent encounters between police and civilians,” Comey said. “That is not good for anybody.”

The Post‘s coverage of its Pulitzer victory is here.

A story told with sensitivity and craftsmanship

MA_BGLater today the Pulitzer Prizes will be announced. And it seems likely that The Boston Globe will win at least one — maybe more — for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath.

So it seems fitting that, on Sunday and today, the Globe published a two-part feature that may be a contender for a 2015 Pulitzer. Written by David Abel and photographed by Jessica Rinaldi, with a video produced by Abel and Scott LaPierre, the package tells the story of the Richards, the Dorchester family that more than any other has come to symbolize the region’s heart-breaking loss and resilience.

In reading the first part, I noticed that Abel offered little in the way of the Richards’ experience when the bombs went off and took the lives of three people, including 8-year-old Martin Richard. (Martin’s sister, Jane, lost part of her left leg. Their parents, Bill and Denise, were injured as well. Their brother, Henry, was not injured physically.)

Toward the end of part two, Abel tells the story — and does it with great sensitivity and craftsmanship.

The phrase “Boston Strong” has been misappropriated by many. Last fall I actually saw it flash on a sign outside a liquor store, followed by that day’s specials. Good grief.

The Richards are Boston Strong.

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