Carmel’s media fails loyal U.S. Soldier

By: Shireen Korkzan <skorkzan@hilite.org>

An open letter to Mark Thompson, Time Magazine:
In the Feb. 25 issue of Time Magazine, you wrote a report titled “Death at the Army’s Hands.” This story was about how Sergeant Gerald Cassidy, a Carmel, IN resident, died in a neglected state in a hospital in Kentucky while in the Army’s care. He had, according to your article, a pharmacy’s worth of drugs in his system, which left him in a stupor for two days and killed him on the third. No one knew of his state until his wife called in to find him. He had been ignored for three days.

As a fellow Carmel resident, I am upset about how no one checked on Cassidy during this time while at Fort Knox, KY, thus leading him to an early death. As a fellow journalist, I am upset at how our local media covered his story, or more accurately, failed to cover it.

After the investigation, the only media outlets that covered the death of Cassidy were the Indianapolis star and Channel 13: Eyewitness News. Even then, neither mentioned Cassidy until at least a couple of months after his death. So here’s the issue: if Cassidy’s death was significant enough (or as Dr. William Kearney, Cassidy’s Army psychiatrist, would consider as a “huge scandal”) to be an angle of a feature story on one of the most prominent international magazines in the world, then why wouldn’t it be covered better locally? You’d think the situation would be the oppressed at most.

Which leads to the larger issue beyond Cassidy’s death and its subsequent “coverage.”

The problem with the local media today is that it has no idea how to sort its priorities on what stories to cover. This includes both print and broadcast news. In this information age, the local media just wants to cover all the big international news and has no idea what the heck’s going in its own backyard. One of the first rules of journalism I learned was that the story must have some sort of effect on its readers, mainly in the town (or school) where the reporter is located. The story needs to have some sort of reason for readers to care about it, and the easiest way is by localizing the angle so that a group of people can relate.

Certainly, the local media has an obligation to cover national and international stories, but not until after it tells what’s happening in its own city or town. Case in point: Last August a mining accident occurred in southern Indiana just four days after another accident in Utah hit the press. Because of the Utah coverage and its national appeal, the Indiana incident was barely covered in any form of media in central Indiana. Something’s not right here.

Getting back to Cassidy for a minute, it’s a shame that Cassidy had been completely ignored during the last three days of his life, but the damage is done. The least the media-particularly the local media-should do is draw attention to this soldier and his sacrifice. For the future, the media must bring more awareness of what is closely surrounding and affecting us here before we speak of what is giving us a long-term effect there.
It’s never too late to change. It’s just a matter of prioritizing which story should come first.

Mr. Thompson, I’m glad that you used Cassidy as your angle when you wrote about the shoddy treatment of soldiers after they come home. If he didn’t get the attention he needed neither under the Army’s care nor in his home residence, it’s a good thing he finally got it though something more prominent. Mr. Thompson, you and Time Magazine gave Cassidy the attention he finally deserves. It’s a shame that the local press couldn’t have given him the same consideration. Shireen Korkzkan is a reporter for the HiLite. Contact her at skorkzan@hilite.org.