In the chaos that stands for what we do every day in the news business, which now operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it's easy to lose sight of the enormous power of words.
It's a little different when you see the pain those words sometimes can cause sitting across the desk from you.
I had a visit in the office yesterday from the family members of Jonathan Green, including his mother.
They were not happy, either with me or with the newspaper.
Jonathan Green was the victim of a homicide last week in Chester Township. They did not like the way he was portrayed in the story that appeared in the paper. They believed it made him look like the bad guy, instead of the victim of a brutal crime.
His mother wanted to offer a different view of her son, and wanted this newspaper and the public to know it.
"My son was not a thug," Mrs. Dorothy Green said as she choked back tears. "He was an educated man."
She admitted her son had his struggles in life, but had put those behind him and was now turning his life around. She stressed that he was a graduate of Strath Haven High School and attended the Chubb Institute.
She objected to the way her son was portrayed, including his past record, and the inclusion of some family references.
"He was getting his life in order," she stressed.
She wanted an apology for the way he had been portrayed.
More importantly, she wanted to remind me of the power of what we do, the words we use, what is included and what is not.
"You stomp on hearts," she said. "Compassion is important, especially for the mother of a child."
She asked me if I had children. I said I did. She asked me how I would like it if they were treated as her son was.
It's something I think about all the time. The last thing we want to do is add to the grief of a family mourning the loss of a loved one. But I know we often do just that.
It's good to be reminded of the power of the words we use. Mrs. Dorothy Green did exactly that.
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