Should Jeff Pearlman have apologized for this?

(I will give credit where it's due: I saw this on The Big Lead.)

Summary: Jeff Pearlman writes a compelling and moving column/story for ESPN.com about former Cowboy Clayton Holmes, who had about one of the most awful childhoods you could imagine. (Beaten by his mom, neglected, molested by his older brother). He became a drug addict, a father to several kids, and now basically wants people to learn from his mistakes, even though he's still making them. You can read it here. It's a very good piece, and I think makes a very interesting and honest choice: Holmes is not a redemptive figure in the story. He's a tragic figure, but also one of his own making. I always admire stories that have no happy ending, because I think it's much more honest.

In the story, he describes Florence, S.C., Holmes hometown, as "In a city long ago deserted by hope ... a downtrodden section of a downtrodden city littered by double-wide trailers, wayward drug dealers and the shattered Budweiser bottles, used condoms, McDonald’s wrappers and crumpled newspapers that seem to pock each dirt road and cement walkway."

As someone who has written about poverty on occassion, Pearlman's description felt true to me.

The people in Florence, though, were not happy. They raged on ESPN's comment board and emailed Pearlman, demanding an apology.

http://www.scnow.com/midatlantic/scp/sports.apx.-content-articles-FMN-2008-01-11-0018.html

So, perhaps understandably, Pearlman apologized.

Here is my question: Would you have apologized? Or is it simply your job as a reporter/columnist/feature writer to make your observations, come to a conclusion, and then stand by that conclusion no matter how many people it offends? As TBL points out, Florence was ranked as the fifth most dangerous city in the country by these rankings.

What would you have done?

 

Why apologize for an honest assessment of the community?

 

He should have apologized. There aren't that many double-wides in Florence.

What does it hurt to apologize if they are offended?

 

That's part of the debate. Is it fair to make a sweeping statement that indicts an entire community? Or is it the writer's goal to make those kind of judgments to help put the story in context, even though you can always debate the semantics of statements like "A city abandoned by hope."

Pearlman's explanation said he was trying to characterize just Holmes neighborhood, not the entire city of Florence, and that was his mistake.

Part of what I'm wondering is: If you've hurt a lot of feelings with something you've written, are you still willing to stand by it? I'm not talking about backing down from a story because people are upset; I'm talking about apologizing for a description that might have been a bit too sweeping and generalizing, and in retrospect, you think it might have gone too far, even though it's still, argueably, true.

Is it honorable to apologize then, defusing the situation, or are you backing down because you don't like to hurt people's feelings?

Just something for discussion.

 

If he saw the trash and crap and described it, fine.

But I have a problem with describing any place as being deserted by hope.

No. 1, it's almost a cliche in stories of this type and doesn't add much to me.

No. 2, it's such a sweeping/subjective statement that it's almost guaranteed to be wrong for some folks at least and generate criticism.

 

I'm sorry you live in a city long ago deserted by hope ... and that I described a downtrodden section of a downtrodden city littered by double-wide trailers, wayward drug dealers and the shattered Budweiser bottles, used condoms, McDonald’s wrappers and crumpled newspapers that seem to pock each dirt road and cement walkway. I'm sorry. But it's all true.

 

New York Times reporter came to our city a month or so ago. Called the city "unpretentious" in the article.

Really, coming from a Times writer, we had no idea whether to take it as a compliment or an insult.

 

I'm no thread tzar, but I'd prefer not to make this a Rocker thread. Pearlman was right then, and he remains right on that issue today. Those who would argue otherwise do not, in my humble opinion, understand perhaps the most basic principals of journalism.

 

The problem here is mechanical more than ethical.


"Somehow, in the drearily colored life of Clayton Holmes, this makes perfect sense. Were his bike, say, gray, Holmes would more easily slip into the backdrop of the east side of Florence, a downtrodden section of a downtrodden city littered by double-wide trailers, wayward drug dealers and the shattered Budweiser bottles, used condoms, McDonald's wrappers and crumpled newspapers that seem to pock each dirt road and cement walkway. Although as a boy Holmes was raised in a trailer at 1018 West Harmony St., the only harmonious element to Florence's poor neighborhoods is the occasional crooning from drunk and cracked-up men on particularly jovial nights."


I think what Mr. Pearlman meant to do was characterize a section of the city, the East Side. But by inserting the clause I bolded above, the rest of the sentence now most correctly describes the entire city. This is a simple mistake, and should have been corrected in draft by the writer, or caught by an editor before the piece went up.

It illustrates how important the smallest things can be, and what a stout defense a writer has in absolute precision of description.

"...deserted by hope..." too, is a very broad figurative idea to support without a couple of pieces of evidence. Once again, if he'd applied the phrase only to a specific neighborhood, or block, he might be able to pull it off.

As to the apology, I'm not sure what I'd do.

 

Fair enough DD out of respect for your work here I've removed my Rocker quote posts. There is a touch of irony though now that the shoe is on the other foot with how Pearlman discribes a community.

He does monitor this site so maybe he will jump on and provide us perspective.

I agree with you on the story. It was a good one.

 

Why are the drug dealers wayward? Doesn't seem all that good for business.

 

Well one thing we have learned then is that the citizens of Florence can read and have good comprehension skills. Apparently they also know how to write. The city can't be all that bad.