Joplin Globe editor still doesn't get it about Baxter Springs sex story

It must not have been an easy week for Joplin Globe Editor Carol Stark.

I imagine her phone has been ringing off the hook and the e-mails and letters to the editor have been pouring in ever since she allowed reporter Jeff Lehr to open his article on a former Baxter Springs teacher/coach  charged with 15 felonies in connection with his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl by talking about how "innocently" it started.

Carol Stark addressed the concerns in a column on the editorial page of today's Globe- and she still has completely missed the point.

Many of her readers complained about the details  Lehr used in writing his story. It was those readers Stark lectured in her column, not the ones who were concerned about the slant in the article. If you are going to write that a sexual relationship between a 45-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl began "innocently," and about how he "demurred" when they made a bet on a football game and she asked what she owed him, then it needs to be made clear that the innocent beginning was a part of the crime.

And Lehr's article did not contain a mention of Scott Madden's age.

Despite all of that, it was the amount of details that Stark dwelled on in her column:

A front page story we ran on October 14 provided details from a probable cause affidavit that was the basis of seven counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and a single count of criminal sodomy and indecent solicitation of a child. The charges were filed against a 45-year-old former high school coach in connection with the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. Using the probable cause statements, our crime reporter, Jeff Lehr, in a narrative writing style, reported how the two met in 2013 and gave readers details that ultimately led to the man's arrest.

This was Stark's response to a concerned reader:

Did it (this story) make me (and our readers) uncomfortable? Of course it did, and it should have. It should be a warning to every parent of a teenage boy or girl. This young girl was manipulated by an adult."

And she ends with this:

There's a lot of really ugly stuff out there. Information, however offensive, is sometimes necessary to start much-needed conversation.

Any time you write a story that provides details of a crime, especially a sex crime, you are going to have readers who are upset. There was a time when newspapers did not provide any of those details. It made it a lot easier for people in trusted positions to get away with crimes of this nature.

When a teacher, or in the case of Scott Madden, a former teacher, is charged with a crime, there will always be people who jump up immediately and blame the victim because that is not the person they know. In many of these stories, it is the details that make it clear the approach the perpetrator took and often uncover evidence that there have been other victims that he or she violated by using the same approach.

Another thing, though not mentioned as often, is how it often uncovers gaping holes in the mechanisms that should be in place to protect young people. Often, there are those who looked the other way, or complaints from other teachers that were ignored.

Sometimes, we uncover instances of school districts that have done what is called "passing the trash" when they allow someone to quietly resign and move on to another district to spread his or her particular brand of poison, or to leave the profession without the district having to go through the hassle of being involved in legal proceedings.

Stark is completely right when she makes the case that the details are important, no matter how uncomfortable they make us.

That was the easy route for her to take. No one is arguing against that, except for a few people who want to be protected from anything that makes them uncomfortable.

Nowhere does she address the people who complained, rightly, that in his efforts to write an engaging story, one that would capture the readers' attention, Lehr immediately offended people by describing how the relationship between a 45-year-old and a 15-year-old started "innocently."

I find it hard to believe that Lehr was trying to slant the story. He is a veteran reporter and a good one.

The Globe's editors let him down on this one. Apparently, at no point did anyone realize how angry people would be when they read about that allegedly innocent start to something that was anything but innocent.

Slanted writing has been a problem for the Joplin Globe for a long time and has been exacerbated ever since Carol Stark rose through the ranks to become editor.

That was the column that Stark should have written.

The devil was never in the details.

Probable cause affidavit for Baxter Springs Sex Case