Interviewing—Emilie Wheeler

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NewsHounds: Please study these two stories from Emilie Wheeler in advance of her visit to class with us on Monday to continue our conversation about interviewing skills. Emilie, a 2005 (?) JCOM grad and former editor of the Statesman, is city editor of the Herald-Journal. She writes:

Ted: OK, I'm sending you two stories for them to read beforehand.

The first is interesting because it dealt with death — a suicide, no less — and I interviewed both the principal who found the girl and another student who was friends with the girl... Tough interviews. Typically, we don’t report on suicides, but this one was done in such a prominent place it made it newsworthy. I wrote the second story more recently, and it’s a little quirky. It required interviews with a couple of uptight city guys and a regular resident (who talked too much for her own good). Those types of interviews are probably more common for reporters on any given day.

I'll also bring a list of tips on Monday.

Emilie

School copes with tragedy: Girl's suicide death announced at South Cache
March 23, 2007

By Emilie H. Wheeler
staff writer

HYRUM — Students and faculty who went to South Cache 8-9 Center Thursday coping with a suicide attempt the day before were dealt another blow when they found out the ninth-grade girl died at a Salt Lake City hospital.

Students at the Hyrum school were notified by an announcement Thursday afternoon that Kailey Mathews, 14, died at Primary Children’s Hospital. Mathews was transported there by LifeFlight Wednesday after hanging herself in a girls’ bathroom that afternoon.

Counselors from Mountain Crest High School joined those at South Cache all day Thursday, discussing the situation with students and faculty at the approximately 1,000-student school.

“They tried to make it as normal for kids as they could,” Superintendent Steve Norton said Thursday afternoon, while providing a place and person to talk to should students need it.

The event has caused other issues to surface, Principal Teri Cutler said.

“For some of the kids, it brings out things that have happened in their lives,” she said.

On Thursday, administrators tried to identify students who were especially close to Mathews.

The school also has a meeting planned tonight in the media center for parents and community members to obtain information on what resources are available to help children through the grief process.

Cutler said those who knew Mathews struggled throughout Thursday.

“It’s hard,” she said. “We care about her, we love her. It’s tough to see students and friends and colleagues sad.”

Fellow ninth-grader Sadie Yeates said she hung out with Mathews during lunch and before school and was good friends with her when they were younger.

“She had a lot of friends,” she said of Mathews. “Everybody really liked her.”

Mathew’s act, discovered by another student just after 1 p.m. Wednesday, looked to have been planned, Norton said.

“It was apparent that she had planned it, yes,” he said.

The student who found Mathews unconscious alerted a faculty member, who got her down.
Cutler said Mathews was a cute and happy girl, but one whom friends and teachers worried about.

“Her friends would tell you that she had talked about it (suicide),” Cutler said. “It’s important to note that never were the discussions ignored. She was talked to.

“We tried to talk to her.”

Cutler called Mathews a “very bright, very capable” student with many friends.

“She had a lot of good friends and a lot of people who cared about her,” she said. Cutler stressed that other parents should know there are children out there dealing with depression.

“Sometimes you have to hear that depression’s real,” she said. “You can’t brush (those feelings) aside. That’s why we felt it was so important to offer that parent meeting. We just want to give parents some tools professionals use.”

Parents are also welcome to call the school, Cutler said.

Mathews was involved with the yearbook class and sometimes stayed after school to work on that, Cutler said. Yeates said Mathews liked makeup, liked to shop and made people laugh.
South Cache was somber on Thursday, Yeates said.

“Everyone was really sad,” she said.

Her classmates will remember Mathews’ smile, her friend said. “She made everyone smile.”

Counselors will be available for students and staff at least through the funeral, the date of which has yet to be announced. The district will do what it can to make sure everybody who wants to can attend the funeral, Norton said.

This incident has perhaps been the most traumatic in recent history, he said.

“There have been students who have taken their lives in the past,” he said. “But, most of those have been away from the school setting.”

At some point, Norton and Cutler said district officials and employees throughout the district will meet to discuss handling a similar situation in the future, should it occur, and what — if anything — should be handled differently.

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Titillating tat: City finds no cause to oust tattooed woman from pool
July 30, 2008

By Emilie H. Wheeler
staff writer

Logan officials say they would have no grounds to oust a recent patron of the city’s Aquatic Center whose tattoo of a partially nude angel offended others at the pool.

Councilmembers, the city attorney and other employees have recently dealt with the complaints of one Logan woman, who is concerned about what she calls a graphic tattoo sported on another woman’s back. While some images may offend others recreating on city property, it’s tough to regulate distasteful material, Logan Attorney Kymber Housley says.

Laura Call was visiting the pool about two weeks ago with her husband, 1-year-old daughter and another couple. She said she — and those with her — became concerned after seeing a detailed tattoo depicting a woman’s breasts on an individual’s back. Call said she complained to a lifeguard, but nothing was done.

“With it being so graphic, especially at a public place, I don’t think it should be allowed,” she said.

But it’s not that simple, Housley contends.

Although he admits he didn’t see the actual tattoo, its description is not legally considered “obscene” and wouldn’t warrant forcing someone to leave the pool or prosecuting anyone who displayed that kind of content, he said.

“There’s a lot of distasteful stuff out there,” he said, “but it just doesn’t meet the legal standard to be prosecuted.”

Call, who e-mailed her concerns to Municipal Councilmembers, Mayor Randy Watts, Parks and Recreation Department Director Russ Akina and Aquatic Center Director Jon Eccles, says she isn’t necessarily lobbying for the prosecution of the individual with the tattoo.

She instead hopes the situations are prevented in the future, something Housley said would also not tread on solid legal ground.

“There’s no harm in asking (people to cover up),” Housley said. “They may say no, and it’s not like we can force them to do that. It really comes down to First Amendment issues.”

This is the first complaint Logan has received of this nature that Housley knows of, he said.

But Call said she worries eroding values may hurt children and families who frequent the Aquatic Center. Others in her party were also offended, she said.

“Any child at any age — they’re not as unaware as some people might think,” she said. “The more they’re exposed to it, the more it’s going to stick in their minds.”

Akina, the Parks and Recreation department director, said the situation puts the city in “a little bit of a pickle.”

“We need to be careful because it is a public facility,” he said, adding that the law should be adhered to.

He said as this was the first situation of this nature he’s dealt with, he planned to see how other cities treat these incidents.

“I will certainly talk to the other professionals in the state,” he said.

There is a Logan ordinance that deals with exposing minors to harmful materials, but Housley said as described to him, this situation doesn’t apply. Individuals can only be prosecuted for knowingly selling or loaning harmful material to minors for monetary consideration, according to the ordinance.

Call, who is a former lifeguard and swim instructor of the Aquatic Center, said the incident could change her family’s recreation habits.

“If we’re going to continue seeing that kind of stuff, we’re not going to take our daughter there,” she said.

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