Did she say that?

By: Pat Tierney

Recently in class we have been talking about what media can and cannot publish.

This reminded me about a story that appeared in a local paper, the Record Herald. This small town paper has a distribution of roughly 14,000 but is owned by America's largest newspaper publisher, Gannett.

A couple of weeks ago, a story was written by a staff writer, who interviewed a woman who has had a relatively traumatic battle with cancer for over 10 years.

This story of Teresa Jacobsen documents the ups and downs of the last few years and currently she is fighting one of those "downs."

The story opens with a little background, all of which sets her story, but then about half way through she discusses why she hasn't given up.

"I'm too big of a bitch to die." Jacobsen said.

I realize that "bitch" really isn't the worst of curse words that could be pulled out, but I thought that it was interesting that a Gannett owned paper, in little old Indianola, Iowa would choose to run the quote.

Not only did the reporter have to be sensitive in talking to a woman (who is in pretty tough shape) and her family, but he had to use discretion as to put the quote in the story or not, all of which are things that we just got done talking about in class the last week.

This article got a little bit of buzz around town as well.

When talking with some people at work, they thought that putting the comment about her being a bitch was unnecessary, even though Jacobsen did say it.

So was the newspaper right? I believe that if you are old enough to have read all of the article down to that point and understand it - then you are old enough to hear the word bitch.

No, putting that quote in the article wasn't overly flattering to Ms. Jacbosen, but that's what she said, and that my friends, is the job of a journalist.