Report to Readers by Susan LoTempio

Help and hate

There was an unusual juxtaposition of stories in the City & Region section Thursday that illustrate quality of life issues experienced by people with disabilities in our community.

  One of the stories was about 18-year-old Joey Gentile-Gioviano of Cheektowaga, who, because of his disability, benefits from water therapy. His family saved enough money to buy a backyard pool, but turned to the insurance company for help getting the special equipment necessary to get him safely into the pool.

The insurance company turned them down. But the Make-A-Wish Foundation did not. And now that he can get into the pool with the assistance of a lift, "He loves being in there," his mother, Marilyn Gentile told reporter Emma Sapong. "If it was up to him, he would just stay in the water."

The other story described the terrifying experience of several young people who are developmentally disabled, who were taunted and chased in their car by teens who seemed hell-bent on causing them harm. The teens were so aggressive they forced the victims to crash as they attempted to get on the Thruway.

But thanks to the outrage of the public, which gave the police eye-witness accounts and tips, three teens were arrested and are facing hate crime charges.

Those stories certainly show the best and the worst of the people who live here. But I also suspect they illustrate some of the problems many residents with disabilities experience on a daily basis in this community. We don't often hear about their problems, but being denied services they need, or being harassed or taunted when they just want to eat a burger, may surprise you, but they are in no way unusual.

Great place for our kids?

I moved back to Buffalo two decades ago because I wanted to raise my family here. The reasons to return home (in our case from California), were the same in the mid-1980s as they are now: being close to family, plentiful day care, affordable cost of living, good schools (at least in the suburbs), and a family-friendly quality of life.

Western New York has always had the reputation of being a great place to raise a family, but does the hype live up to reality?

That's what writer Nicole Peradotto wanted to find out for her story that appears in First Sunday magazine. As you might suspect, there's good news and bad news in her report. Not only did she do extensive research and reporting, but her piece also reflects her personal experiences as the mother of two young children.

What Peradotto writes about mirrors exactly what I experienced 22 years ago when I moved home with an 11-month-old in tow:

Family connections are strong; day care offerings iffy. Public schools disappoint; activities for children - beyond sports - are wanting.

Overall, WNY is no better or worse than most other places to raise a family, despite what the marketing folks would have you believe.

To find out why, read her piece  and join the conversation on the Inside the News blog.

That collapsed bridge story

To the thousands and thousands of print edition readers who wondered why the tragic story of the Minneapolis bridge collapse wasn't on our front page this morning, I say this:

     In my humble opinion, we goofed. Big time.

   I'm not offering reasons or excuses for it. It was apparently an error in judgment and errors in judgment can hardly be hidden when they take place in a newspaper.

  Lucky for us that our online edition has  up-to-the-minute news as it unfolds today in Minneapolis.

  And Friday's print edition will also have much more on the story.

   It's also lucky for us that there will be a paper tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that  .... That allows us the chance to work hard to get it right.

Class of 1987

Our news stories and blogs pay a great deal of attention to WNY's brain drain.

  We all know that people are leaving this region in droves, but it really hits home when our own children decide to live and work somewhere else.

Two of our reporters took the personal approach to the brain drain issue and developed a three-part series that kicks off in Sunday's News called Best & Brightest. It focuses on some members of the Class of 1987 from 25 high schools in Erie and Niagara counties.

Ten years Twenty years (thanks Mark) after graduation, these young people tell us about their lives now, and why they stayed in the area, or why they left.

News Staff reporters Mary Pasciak and Deidre Williams have been working for months tracking down the far-flung class of '87 through intensive research, interviews, Web work, phone calls and e-mails. News photographer Derek Gee has devoted much of his working time to the project, photographing the 48 members of the Class of '87 who are participating.

Their work, under the guidance of suburban editor Bruce Andriatch, will come to fruition when you read the stories and see the Web extras, such as yearbook pictures, biographies and two audio slideshows.

Members of the Class of '87, and anyone else who wants to chime in about the series, can go to our Buffalo Nation blog, which on Sunday will turn its attention to these special stories.

It some ways, reading Best & Brightest feels like attending a 20-year 10-year high school reunion - only with deeper implications for this struggling community.

Harry Potter alert

  Who can be surprised that the Internet is all abuzz over the new Harry Potter book?

Part of the frenzy focuses on the spoilers who claim they have the ending and are posting it online before the book goes on sale Friday at midnight.

Soon, every other type of media will get into the act and Potter fans who don't want to know who lives and who dies before they actually read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" will have to go into total isolation.

We don't want to give away the ending even after the book hits the shelves, but the release of J. K. Rowling's last installment in the Potter saga  is BIG news, and that's something we can't ignore.

(Did you know, for instance, that book retailers report that more orders have been placed for this seventh Potter novel than any other book in history?)

So, to report the news and protect avid Potter readers, we'll include some "warnings" in the pages of The News over the next few days. We'll alert you to stories that contain plot information. You can read them, or not, as you choose.

Power of the falls

I grew up just a few blocks from Goat Island and the mighty Niagara Falls. We could hear the constant roar of the falls from every room of our house, and the dangers of the river and its rapids were drummed into every child on our block.

  The dangers became a reality when as a teenager I saw a toddler drown in the deceptively calm waters of the upper Niagara, just inches off Goat Island. It hit home again when I saw a huge cow trapped in the swirling  whirlpool near Devil's Hole. The animal never had a chance.

So, I was stunned to read about "six people horsing around on personal water craft in the dangerous waters of the lower Niagara River Monday night." See our story at this link.

What they did is not illegal, but it certainly is foolish.

Why do people put themselves at risk, especially against such a formidable foe as the Niagara River?

Readers, any thoughts?

Dog attack

A horrifying story out of Lockport on Tuesday was treated very differently by local radio and TV news outlets and this newspaper.

  The incident was about a 2-year-old boy who had been viciously attacked by a pit bull, the family's pet. The child was admitted to Women and Children's Hospital in serious but improving condition.

We handled the story in the Police & Courts column in the City and Region section. And because the victim is a young child and the actions of the dog were considered quite rare, we chose not to include graphic details of the attack.

Local TV and radio broadcasts did include the disturbing details.

Is this a case of censorship? No, but it does underscore the important differences between The News, which is a family newspaper, and publications like the National Inquirer.

We reported the story accurately without offering secondary details that would disturb the great majority of our readers.

Use the photo or not?

On the front page of today's paper is the picture of Bailey Goodman, one of the recent high school graduates who died, along with four of her friends, in the tragic Fairport car crash. Her picture accompanies a story by reporter Gene Warner that explores the problem of teens who drive on restricted junior licenses.

A well-spoken and thoughtful caller to The News' Reader hotline this morning questioned why that photo had to be used at all.

"It would be best and in good taste not to show the photos of those girls anymore in the paper," the caller said.

"Imagine how traumatizing [it is] to the family to see their deceased daughter's picture on the front page of The Buffalo News."

Most if not all the editors who work on The News' front page are parents, and the trauma of losing a child has been on all our minds since that crash. But, as Warner's story explains, there is a larger issue being discussed after that accident and this week's crash that injured Buffalo Police Officer Carl Andolina (the teen driver involved in that accident also has a junior license): Should the teens have been driving at that time of day on that type of license?

The fact is that neither driver was allowed to drive between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

We understand that Bailey's friends and relatives may find it difficult to see her picture again in the paper, but perhaps they can take comfort in the fact that other parents may now be more vigilant in making sure their teenagers aren't breaking the law.

Is it news or a free ad?

Today's topic: Apple's iPhone and the media circus that has exploded around its release.

  If Apple's Steve Jobs isn't a master salesmen, then he must be the most media savvy person in corporate America. His calculated announcement of this swanky, expensive new Apple product has given the company just what it wanted: unimaginable free publicity before the iPhone even hit the stores.

How to report on (or even if to report on) something like the iPhone - or the next Harry Potter book, or a new talking Elmo doll or another "Star Wars" movie - has become a real issue inside newsrooms as editors wonder if we're becoming part of the publicity machine.

With the speed of light, products like the iPhone get absorbed into our cultural consciousness. Strange things happen, like people standing in line for days to be the first ones to buy the products.

But is that news, or the ultimate example of consumerism gone awry?

You tell me.

Check out some of the stories that have appeared in The News already,.

You can be sure there will be more over the weekend. 

Catching up

   Sorry to have been gone so long. I guess it's not good for this blog to go dark even if a person needs to take a vacation!

  In an attempt to catch up, here are a few random observations:

  * Is there a newspaper in the country that has published as many news stories about trees as The News ? No doubt trees have been in the news (literally and figuratively) since the big storm in October, and continuing with the issues of cleaning up the damage, replanting, and now the problem of the lack of rain.
  Who knew trees could be so newsy.

* Unfortunately, we write and edit far too many stories about the death of children. But few have had as strong an impact as today's piece on the accident Tuesday night near Canandaigua that killed five young women. There isn't a parent in this newsroom, or in this community, who didn't feel sick when they heard about the tragedy.

  Both reporters working the story - Lou Michel and Phil Fairbanks - are parents themselves and despite any personal emotion they may have felt, the veteran reporters handled the story with the utmost professionalism.

* Now that Paris Hilton told her overly rehearsed story to Larry King the other night, isn't it time she dropped off the media radar screen? No more stories, not now, not ever.