“…you'll find out there's some kinds of a son-of-a-bitch you don't have to be even to be a newspaperman.”
That’s a quote from one of my favorite books, “All the King’s Men,” spoken by the jaded former newspaper reporter who narrates that fine novel. I found it to be true in my career and mostly held to it, but it probably cost me some good stories.
This was one of them.
The visitors waiting area at the Lane County Jail in Eugene was a spare place, as you might expect. Concrete walls and benches. Nothing you could grab off the wall and smash the thick glass between you and the inmate you came to see.
I was there hoping to talk to Kip Kinkel, who about 10 days before had murdered his parents and the next morning drove to Thurston High School and opened fire on his fellow students in the cafeteria. He killed two students and wounded two dozen more before brave kids pounded him to the floor, disarmed him and held him until adults could come help.
It was a jolting spasm of violence that tore at your guts. Kip was 15, a freckle-faced freshman from an admired family. His older sister was a compact blonde, smart, outgoing and athletic enough to be a University of Oregon cheerleader. His parents were teachers, open and giving but ultimately foolish. Seeking an outlet for Kip, who was lost in his family’s shadows and was wrestling with a devil in his brain, they gave in to his interest in guns. One of which he used to kill them and took to the high school.
It was national news and nearly the entire staff of the Eugene Register-Guard had jumped in to cover it. We’d all been going day and night to figure out angles, assemble details and provide context while staying a step ahead of the glitzy network TV correspondents and the skilled, aggressive reporters dispatched to our area by much bigger newspapers.
Now Kip was in the Lane County Jail awaiting trial, and it was his visiting hours. I’d put in a request to be added to his visitor list; it was up to him to decide whether to see me. I didn’t expect to get in — certainly his attorneys had warned him against talking to the media — but it was worth a try. Several tries.
A corrections officer sat at a desk next to the metal detector everyone had to walk through. A little girl came in with her mom, come to see dad or momma’s boyfriend, and the officer asked the girl in Spanish how old she was. The little girl said she was five, and smiled shyly.
There was a commotion at the entrance and a wired Meth Momma banged in, greasy haired and frazzle eyed, tailed by some guy, pale and shaky and maybe not sure why they were walking into a place that was filled with sheriff’s deputies. “Whoa!” the Meth Momma called out when she saw the metal detector. “Strip search!”
She grinned madly and pulled up the front of her stained sweatshirt, showing her drooping breasts. I remember her chest was grimy, too. “Haaaa!” she laughed.
The corrections officer, kindly to the little girl, turned stern and no-nonsense. She asked the Meth Momma who she was there to see and figured out the inmate didn’t have visiting time that night. The Meth Momma yelled and the corrections officer said off you go. The Meth Momma yelled some more but banged out the door into the night, the shaky guy following without a word.
The rest of us turned back around on our benches.
There were about half a dozen of us in the waiting area. Two young women sat together behind me and to the right, talking softly.
“I miss his smile,” one of them said with a sigh. And there was an ache in that sigh. That’s what caused me to turn and look at her.
It was Kip Kinkel’s older sister, sitting with a friend. They had no clue who I was. They began to talk again.
The novel I mentioned, “All the King’s Men,” is by Robert Penn Warren, who could write us all into the ground. Go read it, if you haven’t.
The narrator in the novel is Jack Burden, a former newspaper reporter who now does dirty work for the state’s crooked governor.
At a dramatic turn in the story, a woman that Jack Burden cares for gets caught up in lurid events and the media flock around her. She’s dazed and ashen-faced; a cocksure young newspaperman jams a camera in her face and takes her picture.
Jack Burden saunters up to the photographer and tells him he saw him get that picture. The squirt photographer says yeah and Jackie Bird tells him that there’s some kinds of a son-of-a-bitch you don’t have to be even to be a newspaperman.
For the most part, I tried not to be one during my 37 years in journalism. I certainly was an asshole a few times, but generally I strived to be courteous and friendly when I talked to people for stories I was working on.
It’s a tough balance. Being a reporter requires you to approach strangers and ask them who they are, what they saw and what they think about it. Or why they did that. And how do you spell your name?
But I started from a baseline: Nobody had to talk to me if they didn’t want to. Public figures such as politicians, government officials and captains of industry certainly faced a greater expectation and obligation to respond to the media, but even they could tell me to go eff myself. Some did.
To get people to talk to me, I was probably too jovial, too easy going. But on the other hand I think I put people at ease, and on balance probably got more good information and access than if I’d been a jerk on a regular basis.
And here was Kip Kinkel’s sister in the visitors waiting area at the jail, beginning to open up to her friend about her murderous younger brother, who had killed her parents, brought hell to her community and put that deep ache in her sigh. And yet she was there to see him.
She began to speak. I hesitated for a second, then knew I couldn’t just sit there and leech.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry ,” I told her, “but I have to tell you — I’m a reporter, I’m Eric Mortenson with the Register-Guard.”
I’d startled her. She broke off what she was about to say and turned to look at me, mouth open.
I told her I certainly wanted to talk with her, if she was willing. About Kip, about her parents, about herself, if she…
She recovered quickly. Accomplished and smart and now controlling the ache. She said no.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said. And she never spoke to me again. Through her attorney, she turned me down half a dozen times. But she later agreed to an interview with Barbara Walters, the TV personality. That pissed me off, briefly. But oh well.
I could have just sat there silently and eavesdropped. They were in a public place. I’m guessing I would have gotten enough to make a pretty good story.
But I didn’t, and I feel like I did the right thing. There are some kinds of a son-of-a-bitch you don’t have to be.
Your description of your attempt to interview Kip Kinkel, and his older sister, was riveting. I agree with you about being friendly as a path to getting people to open up. It is the right path, especially in times where the person you want to interview is emotionally distraught. It was your job; you had to make on-the-spot judgments. You had to size people up. It's probably a gift similar to what horse whisperers employ. It's why dogs like you. It's why some people do open up to you. There are far too many SOBs in the world, and you did right to not be one of them, even if it cost you a few stories. I did find an interesting story, written by Jessica Schulberg, which was an interview she had with Kip Kinkel, that included photos supplied by his legal team. I am not drawn to read about people like Kinkel, but I found his schizophrenia to be of interest because a protagonist in one of my novels was also diagnosed as being schizophrenic. I suppose there are many such cases where voices tell people to do bad things. We often fail to heed the counsel of our own voices. Human beings are an odd alchemy of good and evil, and in your reporting you tried to follow the good path, and that is worthy of something.
I guess I caught a sneak peak of other stories you were about to share, including an unfinished sentence. Looking forward to reading more!