The Niles Star

In the opening pages of author and reporter Pete Hamill's book "Downtown," he recounted his experiences as a "newspaperman" in 1960s New York City. He mentions one particular story, a murder scene, in which he learned a valuable lesson from the paper's photographer as they stood over the victim.

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Jessica Sieff: In situations such as these, look beyond the surface

Published 11:37am Thursday, March 11, 2010

“Look at this guy’s socks,” the photographer said. “One brown sock and one blue sock. What’s that tell you?”

Hamill admits that he didn’t know. The photographer clues him in on the matter’s indications. The victim was dressed at home or dressed in the dark, he says. When Hamill asks a detective about the socks, he says he got the same answer.

The experience opened the reporter’s eyes. Though he had built an ability to write a story accurately with a clear enough picture of what he’d witnessed, he writes, “…I was nagged by doubt, knowing that I’d only skimmed the surface of the story and some larger truth was always eluding me.

“Who were all these other people in the neighborhood where one of them had now been killed?” Hamill continues. “How did they live?”

It’s a question I think many ask in their own communities when something bad happens. When something beyond our norm happens, we ask, “Who are these people? The happy couple, the young boy, the family now in the eye of a storm of rumor and speculation?”
The last two days have been filled with coverage of the recent death of a grandfather at the apparent hand of his own grandson.

And it was surprising to me how quickly so many, some of them not even from our own community, were quick to speak with a startling lack of sensitivity.

I feel a little privileged to have the job of a reporter, because it requires one to develop skills to look deeper. To ask more questions. To see without the influence of opinion.
I urge people to do more of that themselves. To ask more questions. To look deeper before building an opinion based on surface and not substance.

Not only into the strangers or the neighbors or the acquaintances, but of themselves.
Sure it’s not always comfortable to determine those answers. Sometimes we discover things about ourselves we didn’t quite expect. Sometimes the unexpected opens us up to a greater understanding of the world we live in. A greater sensitivity to that which we cannot judge.

The story of Dakotah Eliason, which has captured quite a bit of attention in the last few days, is one that I find, if you look past the sensationalism of it all, that’s simply a sad situation.

Looking past the crime itself, the circumstances nobody knows, strip it down to the socks and at the root of the story is a family robbed of its child in one way or another for an undetermined amount of time.

And hopefully … it will make you think.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.