Covering foster care: Writing the stories others ignore

            It happens all the time after a reporter does “the fatality series” – the story or series about deaths of children “known to the system.”

            The reporter is deluged with calls and e-mails from parents who feel their children were wrongfully taken from them.  Naively, they assume that the reporter really cares about children and now that he’s seen how often the system fails, “he’s bound to want to know about my story.”

            The reporter never responds.  Within the newsroom he and his colleagues may well treat such requests with contempt.

            So the stories of children needlessly taken from everyone they know and love and consigned to the chaos of foster care are far less likely to be told.

            There are a lot of reasons.

THE RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION HIGH

            For one thing, after immersing oneself in the gruesome details of what a tiny minority of sadistic, brutal parents do to their children, the reporter is likely to be on a “righteous indignation high” – the last thing he wants to hear is someone saying “yes, but…” – least of all someone he’s sure really is a child abuser.

            But there are other reasons as well.  Child welfare may be the only beat where the story most likely to advance a reporter’s career also is the easiest to do.

            The “fatality series” is the low-hanging fruit of the child welfare beat, because the death of a child “known to the system” is the time when it’s hardest for child welfare systems to hide their failings behind confidentiality laws.

            Some years ago, I read with disgust a “how I got that story” piece by a reporter who had done one of these series – complete with all the usual false assumptions and scapegoating.  He advised any journalist starting out covering child welfare to begin with “the fatality series” – precisely because it’s the easiest to do.

            It’s also the quickest, easiest way to glory on the child welfare beat.

            For the same reason most parents are good parents – we’re “hard wired” to respond with horror and revulsion to a child being hurt – these usually are high-impact series, guaranteed to win journalism awards.  Unfortunately the impact often is a foster-care panic which makes everything worse (and no, David Lauter, assistant managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, that does not mean reporters shouldn’t cover child abuse fatalities, it means they should cover them better.)  The “fatality series” also leaves the impression that the only mistake child welfare agencies make is to leave children in dangerous homes - because so many reporters won’t do the harder stories.

            Oh, and one other thing: The professionals in the child welfare system and foster and adoptive parents usually are of the same race and class as most reporters; they’re people journalists naturally are comfortable with.  Most birth parents who lose children to foster care are not.

            Similarly, almost every middle-class professional has a friend or colleague who has adopted a child, few journalists personally know anyone, aside from, very rarely, story subjects, who has had a child returned to her or him from foster care.

            This helps explain why, on those rare cases when wrongful removal does make the front page, or at least the front page of the metro section, it’s usually one of those very rare times that the long arm of child protective services reaches into the middle class: a story like this one or this one.

FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, AN EXCEPTION

            Fortunately, there are exceptions.

            For several years, Issac J. Bailey, metro columnist for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. has reported on stories other journalists ignore.  Some of his columns have been collected in a book.

            Bailey is Black.  He was one of eleven children raised in rural South Carolina.  He is also, in his own words “a proud product of handouts.”  He writes:

The government provided me with food stamps and free lunches and big, long rectangular boxes of cheese and powdered milk and bags of beans and Pell grants and health insurance to nourish my body and mind in ways my family's precarious financial predicament did not allow.

           So his background is closer to that of a lot of parents caught up in the system than that of many reporters.

          A background like Bailey’s is by no means a prerequisite for getting the child welfare story right – some outstanding child welfare reporting has been done by journalists from backgrounds every bit as privileged as that of reporters prone to taking the cheapest of shots.   Conversely, there are plenty of poor people who, while escaping from poverty, developed amnesia.  That’s even more true if their “handouts” were the kind that have no stigma, like the G.I. Bill or an FHA-backed home loan, or the mortgage interest tax deduction.

         But I’m guessing that a background like Issac Bailey’s sometimes may make a reporter more willing to listen.

         But there’s something else: Bailey also just works harder than many reporters.

Tomorrow: How that hard work helped reunite a daughter with her father – and what probably is the most important reason why so many reporters won’t write a story like that.

Covering foster care in Los Angeles: Getting precise about precision

The previous post to this Blog compared the way the Los Angeles Times has reported the child welfare story to the Times own Code of Ethics on the matter of sources.  The ethics code also has an admirable section on “precision.” Let’s see how well it’s being followed when the Times covers child welfare:

The ethics code says: We live and work in a media environment suffused with hyperbole. It is The Times’ intention to stand distinctly apart from that world and speak straightforwardly to readers.

But Assistant Managing Editor David Lauter, in his defense of Garrett Therolf, the embattled reporter for the beleaguered Los Angeles Times, writes:   Presumably, in the view of … critics, a news organization that finds evidence of mismanagement or poor execution of policies should say nothing for fear of how a panicked bureaucracy might respond.

The ethics code says: We do not exaggerate sourcing (a single source is a “source,” not “sources”).

But Daniel Heimpel in The Huffington Post cites a Therolf story in which Therolf  says: "Others who have studied the waiver program say that earlier indicators were already suggesting problems."

The "others" were actually one person, Charlie Ferguson …

(And, of course, Ferguson’s comments were taken entirely out of context).

The ethics code says: We do not manufacture, embroider or distort quotes …

But, as Heimpel points out: On October 12th, DCFS Communications Director Nishith Bhatt sent the Times' Therolf an email asking where in [an Office of Independent Review] report [OIR Chief Attorney Mike] Gennaco had used the word "hid." Three minutes later Therolf replied, writing: "In his oral remarks, Gennaco said dozens of cases were inappropriately hidden from the public."

Nowhere in the transcripts from the August 31 Supervisorial hearing in which Gennaco shared his report did he indicate that the Department had hid child deaths. 

Granted, Therolf never quoted Gennaco as using the word “hid” in print.  Rather, he simply wrote that "The county's Office of Independent Review recently found that the department hid dozens of cases from the public," with no attribution to a person or document at OIR at all.  Ultimately he could claim his source is “unpublished reporting.”

The ethics code says: It is unacceptable to hedge an unverified or unverifiable assertion with words such as “arguably” or “perhaps.” Our job is to tell readers what is true, not what might be.

 But what about hedging an unverified assertion with the word “presumably”? (See first item above).  And what about variations on the classic hedge line “raises questions” – like this one from a Therolf story on November 13:

 Among the problems Ploehn faces are questions about her management of a controversial federal and state program known as the Title IV-E waiver.

That’s followed in the next paragraph by a repeat of the out-of-context statistic from the waiver evaluation.

Yes, the Times has quite an admirable section of its Code of Ethics concerning precision. I can’t wait to find out precisely when Therolf and his editors plan to start following it.

Tomorrow:  Why do reporters like Therolf take the easy way out and avoid writing about families whose children are wrongly taken away?  A much better reporter at a much smaller paper on the other side of the country has one possible answer.

Covering foster care in Los Angeles: Does anyone at the L.A. Times read the L.A. Times Code of Ethics?

           One mouse click away from Los Angeles Times Assistant Managing Editor David Lauter’s attempt to defend the Times’ child welfare reporting, an attempt most notable for its immaturity, is the Times’ Code of Ethics.  Here’s the beginning of the section on the use of anonymous sources:

We report in environments – Hollywood and Washington, to name two – where anonymity is routinely sought and casually granted. We stand against that practice and seek to minimize it. We are committed to informing readers as completely as possible; the use of anonymous sources compromises this important value.

These standards are not intended to discourage reporters from cultivating sources who are wary of publicity. Such informants can be invaluable. But the information they provide can often be verified with sources willing to be named, from documents, or both. We should make every effort to obtain such verification.

The code goes on to list a series of strict criteria for using anonymous sources.

           Compare that to this example from Daniel Heimpel’s analysis of Times child welfare reporting in The Huffington Post.  Heimpel discusses a story in which Garrett Therolf, the embattled reporter for the beleaguered L.A. Times, writes that:

"The county's Office of Independent Review recently found that the department [of Children and Family Services] hid dozens of cases from the public," …

            Heimpel points out, however, that

           The report itself was devoid of any indication that the Department had "hid" anything. Rather Mike Gennaco, Chief Attorney at the Office of Independent Review wrote in the report, "that during OIR's review, it received no information to believe that this alleged inconsistent approach in assessing child fatalities between different components of DCFS was either intentional or designed."

            On October 12th, DCFS Communications Director Nishith Bhatt sent the Times' Therolf an email asking where in the report Gennaco had used the word "hid." Three minutes later Therolf replied, writing: "In his oral remarks, Gennaco said dozens of cases were inappropriately hidden from the public."

Nowhere in the transcripts from the August 31 Supervisorial hearing in which Gennaco shared his report did he indicate that the Department had hid child deaths. Even when pressed by Supervisor Zev Yaroslovsky that "there are some reasons to believe that this is not just an accidental disconnect, that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing," Gennaco clarified that he had "no evidence" of any intent to suppress information.

            When asked again by Bhatt to produce documentation, Therolf retreated from his email response claiming that Gennaco had said, "dozens of cases were inappropriately hidden from the public," in his "oral statements." Instead, Therolf wrote that Gennaco's purported statement that the Department had "hid" cases was "unpublished reporting."

"Your original message was treated as a formal request for correction," Therolf writes to Bhatt, "and I informed you that my editor and I see no need for correction. As you know, unpublished reporting is protected, and I am unable to share it with you. The story speaks for itself."

On October 14th, Gennaco sent an email to Times editors David Lauter, Megan Garvey and the Reader's Representative demanding a correction over the Times' assertion that he had said the Department "hid dozens of cases from the public."

Despite this request, on Oct 19th the Times published another article stating that Gennaco, "found the department inappropriately hid dozens of cases from public view." But strangely added: "whether the failure to make the files public was intentional or not remains under review." By definition, to hide is to put something out of sight. This renders these two statements contradictory.

Despite the contradictions within the story itself, and two requests to set the record straight, no clarification or correction was ever given.

          So not only does the written record fail to confirm Therolf’s “unpublished reporting” it contradicts Therolf’s claim. 

          The Times ethics guidelines say that when anonymity is granted

Stories should identify sources as completely as possible consistent with the promise of anonymity.  In particular, a source’s point of view and potential biases should be disclosed as fully as possible. 

         Also, it is traditional journalistic practice, when an anonymous source makes a claim, for those disputing the claim also to be quoted so readers can make up their own minds.

         Yet in this case, the claim that "The county's Office of Independent Review recently found that the department [of Children and Family Services] hid dozens of cases from the public" simply was presented as fact.  Readers were not even told, and have not been told in the pages of the Times to this day, that the office’s chief attorney says the OIR makes no such claim.  Lauter does not address this at all in his response, except indirectly here:

          Finally, press spokesmen for DCFS and L.A. County have said that The Times “ignored” requests for corrections on several stories. This, too, is incorrect. All requests by county officials alleging inaccuracies in Times stories have been reviewed. In the few instances in which the stories included inaccurate passages, we have published corrections. In other cases, we have determined that the story was correct, and no correction has been warranted.

          In other words, Lauter is saying, we’re not ignoring you, we just think you should go [expletive] yourself!

Tomorrow, I’ll take a precise look at the section of the Code of Ethics on “precision.” And if you really want a good laugh, compare Times child welfare coverage to the section of the ethics code on “fairness.”

After the holiday…

            Here’s what I expect to be posting next week, unless events intervene:

            ● Monday: How does Los Angeles Times child welfare reporting compare to the standards set in the section of the Times’ own Code of Ethics on sources?  (Hint: About as well as you’d expect).

            ● Tuesday: How about the section of the Code of Ethics on “precision”? (About the same).

            ● Wednesday: Why do reporters like the Times’ Garrett Therolf take the easy way out and avoid writing about families whose children were wrongly taken away?  A much better reporter at a much smaller paper on the other side of the country has one possible answer.

Foster care in Los Angeles: A mature response from the L.A. Times editorial board

UPDATE, NOV. 22: Today brings another smart post from Celeste Freemon at WitnessLA and a story about the child welfare waiver debate from the Los Angeles Daily News that takes a refreshing approach: It reports both sides.

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a smart sensible analysis of what’s gone wrong at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services – from the Los Angeles Times.  It comes not from the news side, but rather the editorial page.

Today’s editorial zeros-in on the real problems: poor management and obsessive secrecy.  In fact, it bears some resemblance to this post on this Blog about why DCFS Director Trish Ploehn has to go and this one about a report highlighting some of the agency’s real problems.

After carefully sorting the wheat from the chaff, and the facts from the hype, in more than a year of Times news stories, and, apparently going beyond the stories to read some of the underlying documents, the Times editorial concludes:

Steady discipline, better deployment of personnel, clear directives, focused training and an unwavering commitment to public accountability are the methods by which DCFS will recover. The county owes that much to the children in its care.

The contrast is striking, both in tone and substance, with the immature response to critics of Times reporting from David Lauter, the Times’ assistant managing editor for state and local reporting.

REFUSING TO SCAPEGOAT THE WAIVER

Most notable is what the editorial does not say.

● The editorial does not target the county’s waiver from federal funding restrictions; in fact, it doesn’t mention the waiver at all, even though that’s become a favorite scapegoat of Garrett Therolf, the embattled reporter for the beleaguered Times.

● The editorial refuses to buy into Therolf’s hype about child abuse deaths.  The editorial reminds readers that over the past decade, staffing at DCFS has gone up and the number of children under the agency’s supervision has gone down, and then notes that

over that same period, even by DCFS' calculations, the number of children who have died as a result of abuse or neglect has remained steady, at about 20 a year, a discouraging trend that suggests an agency that, if not in crisis, is not making headway toward fulfilling its most fundamental responsibility.

In one respect that’s actually more credit than DCFS is going to get from me – I think, at the moment, the agency is in crisis, partly because of Ploehn’s mismanagement and penchant for secrecy and partly because of the foster-care panic set off by Therolf’s stories.

But looking at the big picture I think there actually has been headway.  For starters, fatalities are an extremely poor way to measure progress for a reason for which we all should be grateful: though each is the worst kind of tragedy, thank God that, in a county with more than 2.5 million residents under age 18, there are few enough of them for the number to rise or fall due to random chance.  That also helps explain why this report from a Texas think tank found that nothing agencies like DCFS do will change those numbers – but more prevention, more efforts to curb poverty and more efforts to curb teenage pregnancy will.  The report also has a good discussion of the limits of trying to measure changes in fatality numbers.

But better measures of safety, such as overall reabuse of children, also have improved over the past decade – Therolf simply hasn’t reported that fact.  (To see these data, click here and follow the instructions for creating a table.)

FEWER TOXIC SIDE EFFECTS

If a child welfare agency can significantly reduce foster care without safety getting worse that is, in fact, headway – because thousands of children have been spared the enormous harm of foster care itself. 

Think of it as like having two drugs to treat cancer. Both work, say, 80 percent of the time and fail the other 20 percent.  But one has terrible toxic side effects, the other doesn’t.  Which do you choose?

Los Angeles County is attaining at least the same level of safety it obtained a decade ago.  That’s not nearly good enough, but at least it’s getting those results while exposing fewer children to the toxic side effects of foster care.  

The real tragedy is that even that progress may be undone by the foster care panic.

The one place where I take issue with the editorial concerns part of the paragraph that follows the one about fatalities.  According to the editorial:

Moreover, though child deaths are the most tragic consequence of DCFS ineffectiveness, the county abounds with stories of children left in squalid conditions, inexplicably reunited with dangerous parents rather than remaining in the hands of caring foster parents, or otherwise mistreated. 

That’s true.  But the county also abounds with stories of children taken from safe homes, or homes that could be made safe with the right kinds of help, only to suffer terrible trauma in foster care.

The Times just refuses to tell those stories.

Starting tomorrow [UPDATE: Make that next week]: Comparing L.A. Times child welfare coverage to its own standards

The Los Angeles Times has an admirable Code of Ethics.  Tomorrow and Tuesday I’ll compare the code to the actual Times coverage of child welfare. 


Well, that was the original plan.  But today's Times editorial, the topic of a new post to this Blog, deserves more attention during the week, and that would push any other posts very close to Thanksgiving.  So I expect to post about the code of ethics starting a week from tomorrow.


But why wait for me?  You might want to compare Times coverage of child welfare to the code yourself - see especially the sections on "Sources" "Precision" and "Fairness" - and decide for yourself if the reporting of Garrett Therolf, the embattled reporter for the beleaguered Los Angeles Times, measures up.

Just when I thought it was safe to stop writing about L.A....

...The Los Angeles Times responds to NCCPR and other critics of its child welfare coverage.  NCCPR's response to the response is here.  There's also a great response to the Times from Celeste Fremon at WitnessLA  UPDATE, 9:44PM: LAWeekly's story includes a useful reminder that when the Times defends its story about fatality numbers, the defense applies to the revised version, after editors rewrote parts of reporter Garrett Therolf's original, offering no explanation for the change.  The LAWeekly story also notes that the tone of the Times response was unusual.  And the controversy makes its national debut as Romanesko - the first place many journalists turn for their daily fix of media news - posts a link to the Times response.

The Post I'd planned for today, on National Child Welfare Hypocrisy Day, is below.