The fake news folks aren’t going to such lengths
Rosie Mullaley’s story was about a hero.
Mike Stapleton, a St. John’s taxi driver, pulled four young people out of a smoking car around 2:15 a.m. on May 12.
Mullaley, a well-known and respected journalist at The Telegram, was chronicling the cabbie’s efforts.
The male driver and male passenger in the back of the smoldering Dodge Caliber were unconscious, while two females — one in the front seat and another in the back — were screaming for help.
“It was bad,” Stapleton told Mullaley. “The girl in the front seat, the seat was curled up, jamming her in. She couldn’t get out. The air bag had gone off. … The girl in the back looked like her leg was snapped, like it was caught under the seat.”
The cabbie pulled each of them to safety, one by one.
He had some trouble with the female trapped in the front seat.
The door wouldn’t open.
“I tried and tried, but it was jammed,” the 6-foot-4, 275-pound Stapleton recounted.
But he refused to stop tying.
“I said, ‘God, almighty, if you’re up there, give me strength.’ ”
Finally, the door opened and he pulled her out of the vehicle.
A short while later, the car exploded.
You can find Mullaley’s compelling story — the most-read across SaltWire Network last week — at bit.ly/RosiesStapletonStory.
When reading it, one thing won’t be obvious — the extra effort Mullaley put into finding a second person to quote, what I call a second voice.
After speaking with Stapleton, the reporter searched vigorously for someone else to interview.
Ideally, she wanted to speak with one of the young people Stapleton rescued.
Unfortunately, despite her best attempts, Mullaley couldn’t track either of them down.
Her desk is near my office door.
On the day she wrote this article, as I left to go home a few minutes late, Mullaley was still there trying to track down that second voice.
She stayed until she got one, Stapleton’s boss.
An intent of this column is to take readers behind the scenes and show how journalists work.
The efforts reporters go through to have a second voice in their stories are unknown to the public.
It’s not the most exciting part of the work, but it’s crucial to sound journalism and good storytelling.
Why?
When an article is about a conflict or disagreement, having voices from both sides is a must. Where possible in such stories, it’s good to have a third voice from an independent party, like a topic expert.
But when a piece does not involve conflict or have people on different sides of an issue, having a second voice enhances the narrative by adding context and colour.
It also helps validate the premise and/or main character of a story, like the cabbie’s boss at Jiffy Cabs did in Mullaley’s.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing superhuman about finding a second voice. It’s all part of a journalist’s job, an occasionally time-consuming aspect that helps reporters tell better stories about people, about heroes like Mike Stapleton.