Forgive me if I’m being a bit too empathetic for the family and friends of slain abortion doctor George Tiller, but is this really appropriate, care of ABC’s Breaking News e-Alert:
A Suspect Is in Custody in the Killing of Controversial Abortion Dr. George Tiller, a Source Tells ABC News
Then again, maybe it’s OK because a breaking news alert is kinda like a blog post, which journalist extraordinaire Jeffrey Rosen explained, basically, means that it doesn’t need to be fact-based. (Click on the link to read Glenn Greenwald’s excellent post, and don’t get me started down that path.)
I can see ABC’s bulletin issued as James Earl Ray was arrested:
A Suspect Is in Custody in the Killing of Controversial Minister and Civil Rights Activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Source Tells ABC News
And upon recovering John Wilkes Booth’s body:
The Body of the Suspect in the Killing of Controversial President Abraham Lincoln Has Been Recovered, a Source Tells ABC News
And so on. Most public figures who are killed are controversial to some people, including usually the person who killed them.
The point, as it turns out, isn’t about empathy at all. It’s about journalism. As all college — or even high school — students learn in their first newspaper class: As a reporter you don’t declare the person or event to be controversial, you allow the story to tell itself. Controversy isn’t a fact, it’s an opinion.
True, a Breaking News e-Alert has limited space, but I don’t think that excuses a short-cut that cedes the very debate that made the figure controversial to some people.
For coverage of the killing, kansas.com has been the place to go.
[UPDATE: For an article I found this morning detailing the religious right and Operation Rescue's mission against Dr. Tiller, see this piece in Rolling Stone from 2004:
Since 1999, when he became the head of Operation Rescue, [Troy] Newman has been determined to come up with a novel strategy to prove himself. So two years ago, he moved his family to Wichita with a single, shining goal: to shut down Women’s Health Care Services. The clinic is run by a doctor named George Tiller, a lightning-rod figure in the abortion wars. Tiller’s reputation for performing late-term abortions draws women from all over the world to his clinic — women whose unborn children have been diagnosed with genetic deformities or whose health makes childbearing dangerous. It also makes Tiller’s clinic the perfect target for Newman’s campaign of intimidation. “Wichita isn’t big enough for George Tiller and me,” Newman declared in a full-page ad he took out in a Catholic paper called The Wanderer.
This morning, I tweeted that the article made me sick, and — thinking about his family and friends and thinking about the city of Witchita today — reading it again is just as awful.]
[FURTHER UPDATE: Ana Marie Cox just shared a Salon piece on Bill O'Reilly's campaign against Dr. Tiller, who he -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- called Tiller the Baby Killer over the past four years.]
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found
I’ve seen other headlines referring to him as the “Late Term Abortion Doctor George Tiller Shot” and “Dr. ‘Tiller the baby killer’ gunned down at church” and “Kansas Abortion Doctor murdered on second try” – true, none of these (quote)news(unquote) outlets are as mainstream as ABC, but it’s not surprising the news can’t calm down enough from the hysterical controversy to just report the facts respectfully.
I don’t understand how either “Late Term Abortion Doctor George Tiller Shot” or “Kansas Abortion Doctor murdered on second try” is not “just report[ing] the facts respectfully.” Please enlighten me.
I think a reference to “late-term” is acceptable to explain why Tiller was a particular target for abortion prohibitionists. “A Suspect Is in Custody in the Killing of Late-Term Abortion Dr. George Tiller, a Source Tells ABC News” seems like a reasonable headline. Unlike “Controversial,” which is an adjective that adds little to the reader’s understanding, “Late-Term” adds a fact: this abortion provider was unusual for performing second- and third-trimester abortions. (For those of us who want to keep abortion safe, legal, rare and accessible, his death is an even greater tragedy because it reportedly leaves only two late-term abortion providers in the entire United States.)