PressEthic

It has been one week since tragedy struck the small Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Americans are still engulfed by the story of the schoolhouse massacre and remain inundated with constant updates on each detail of that loathsome morning, paining to make sense of the horrible events.

Yet it may be a week still until the topic is covered in the Amish newspaper, if the community chooses to address the horrific day at all.

The weekly Amish newspaper, Die Botschaft (translated to mean “The Message” in Pennsylvania Dutch) takes one to two weeks to reach the people. The paper is not written by reporters but by “scribes” who write letters detailing community happenings. Modern technology is forbidden in the production of the paper, thus news is weeks old before it reaches publication.

An article in the LA Times addresses the Amish journalistic tradition and leaves one to wonder if there isn’t something that modern American journalists could take from this community’s approach.

The editor of Die Botschaft, Elam Lapp, said he hoped not to devote too many column inches to “the incident” though the newspaper will reflect the loss of life. Lapp sees no reason to pass the horrible details of the massacre to his readers, who need to be focused on forgiveness and moving on, according to the article.

This method of coverage is not unique to the schoolhouse tragedy. The paper has a longstanding policy prohibiting the publication of topics that are deemed morbid, controversial or titillating; particularly stories about murder or war, but also about love or religion.

Death is recorded but not dwelt upon, as in the case of Emanuel King, a 12-year-old hit by a car on Sept. 24 while riding his scooter:

"His birthday was in November, so he didn't get to be a teenager," wrote a scribe from Paradise, Pa. "Oh, how soon one's plans can change and we think of yous so much. He was our son Allen's age, and only two months younger. Guess that's why it hit us so much! Keep looking up!"

In reference to the schoolhouse tragedy Lapp said:

We might mention that it happened … Soon it's going to drop out of the scene. It's really not important to point out all the knickknack items. When scribes' letters come in referring to a gunman, for instance, we just talk about the tragedy in the schoolhouse. We don't want to get into too much talk about gunmen.

As the media penetrated the mourning Pennsylvania town, the Amish people did not speak to journalists, did not look in the face of cameras, and only a select few elders attended police or media briefings. This made reporting a different kind of challenge for journalists, and many used descriptive prose as detail, in place of quotation. The stories produced were vivid and emotional. Still it seems we keep searching for the horrific details.

As the nation is in awe of the peaceful community’s desire to forgive the madman that tortured their town, many Americans realize that there may be something to learn from these people. I do not believe in a journalist depriving the reader of fact and detail or choosing what part of a story to tell. Still, as the detail and gore of the schoolhouse massacre is repeated to numbness, I come to appreciate the Amish way of recording tragedy.