Video of fatal ride prompts debate

We hold ethical debates in the newsroom virtually every day, and typically we have a fair amount of time to chew over the question of the moment.

Sometimes, such as Wednesday night, we debate with the proverbial gun to our heads because we’re doing it on deadline.

To set the scene, the staff was working on two big stories that evening. The first was a big business story — one that Business Editor Ron Carter said could be the biggest business development for central Ohio during the many years he has been covering business news. The other was one we didn’t know about until word came across the emergency scanners that a ride at the Ohio State Fair had malfunctioned, hurling fairgoers from the ride.

The business story had been developing slowly over many days and weeks, like a hurricane finally making land. The other hit us like an Ohio tornado.

The storms converged between 7:30 and 8 p.m.

— a few hours from our 11:30 p.m. deadline to have all of our pages sent to the pressroom.

While some of us are in the office at late hours, on that day, four of the senior editors who ended up involved in the coverage planning and the ethical debate were elsewhere. I was in a meeting at my church. Assistant Managing Editor Kelly Lecker was visiting with friends, and Assistant Managing Editor Michelle Everhart was getting her children off to bed.

But when called, we respond at all hours. Lecker got word from the Metro team and told her friends that she needed to leave for work. They were saddened when she told them about the

death at the fair. When she called to give me the news, my church friends offered a prayer for those involved in the tragedy. And Everhart was looking at a video of the ride accident — away from her children — to determine whether we could or should use it online.

Elsewhere at that hour, business reporter Dan Gearino, photographer Josh Bickel and a couple of editors were chasing reports that the chairman of Foxconn, an Apple supplier considering central Ohio for a large factory that could employ thousands, was having dinner with business