First, let me say that I’m incredibly honored to be here today. To be linked with Mike Berger is an immense privilege. I strive to be like him. He was a true newspaperman.
Right now, I’m a crime reporter. I deal with murder, mayhem, fires, basically bad stuff happening to the people of New Orleans. And bad stuff happens very often.
Last year alone, 179 people were murdered. This homicide series came out of just one of them; number 37 happened to be a teenager named Lance Zarders.
Though we at The Times-Picayune cover crime very aggressively, sometimes the back-story of each murder is unattainable, or never told. It’s certainly not for lack of effort. Doors get slammed in faces, people are reluctant to talk. Most often a murder gets eight inches or so of print.
At one point last year, I convinced the cops to let me shadow a pair of homicide detectives for a few days. My editor and I figured we would work out an interesting Sunday story.
Then on an awful night last March, rising with the detectives, I saw Lance. He had been shot dead, left lying in the gutter.
From there I reported and reported. My editor and I soon saw the potential for a much more meaningful story.
We wanted to tell Lance’s story and through him the story of so many others who more often that not get relegated to the back pages of the newspaper; their killers almost never get convicted.
Lance was 17. He was in love with a girl. He liked to play video games. He was about to be confirmed in church. He was just a boy.
The series – expertly fine-tuned by my editor and into eight daily stories – ran in July. The perspective shifted among the two homicide detectives, Lance’s parents, and a 15-year-old murder suspect with his own gunshot scars.
The feedback from readers was overwhelming. One woman asked that I tell the witness to the murder to be strong. Another reader asked where Lance was buried. She said she wanted to pay her respects.
Many who read the series said they never knew that a murder could impact so many people. In New Orleans, there’s a notion that as long as the shootings don’t take place on your block, then it’s okay, life goes on. I hope we showed them otherwise.
Mike Berger did this throughout his career – opening readers’ eyes to stories too often forgotten in life’s routine. He looked for the extraordinary in ordinary people and things.
In one of my favorite columns, Mr. Berger wrote of the crews that dig below the pavement. He likened these men to stethoscopes, detecting problems lurking beneath the surface.
The subjects of his columns belonged to the community, usually a workman or an everyman making this city great as they toiled in obscurity. These people were the city’s lifeblood.
The ways and means of how we deliver stories are changing. You all know that better than anyone, and it will be our job to figure out journalism’s future.
Maybe today Mike Berger would be considered a new York borough blogger, or a mobile journalist, or a multimedia storyteller. Regardless, he would still be unearthing the stories that we pass by everyday, finding those details that make readers laugh, cry, react in outrage, and compel them to march on City Hall. He would still be showing readers what makes their community tick, introducing them to people – their neighbors – who they might never have the chance to meet.
And whether it’s through articles, blogs, pictures or soundslides, those are the stories we must continue to tell.
Thank you again. I’m very honored to receive this award.