SECOND-GUESSING IN REPORTING ON THE BOBBITTS

Mine is a business made for second-guessing. Readers of newspapers can typically find sport in decrying the selection and placement of certain stories, believing the editor is either agenda-driven or lame-brained for choices made.

If readers think this is solely their domain, they don't know much about newspaper people, who also spend considerable time stewing over their editorial decisions, wondering if the selections they make under deadline pressure will stand up in the cool reasoning that follows publication.

To my desk recently came a document, dozens of pages long, from a national press organization evaluating the conduct of the news media with regard to the Branch Davidian fiasco in Waco, Texas. The exhaustive report helps dispel a widely held myth that the news media are cold-blooded hit-and-run artists, unreflective in their approach and uncaring about consequences of their actions.

For some reason, this came to mind the other day when I was reading through a sampling of editorials from international newspapers and noticed the Jerusalem Post offered its take on the Lorena Bobbitt trial.

As to the second guessing, personal as opposed to received, this newspaper chose to limit its coverage of both Bobbitt trials, not only the most recent criminal proceeding against Lorena but the earlier one against the ill-starred John.

In adopting this approach, I believed the larger news organizations, including the one that supplied us with blow-by-blow accounts from the trials, was playing the story for its capacity to titillate.

True, there was a "man bites dog" element to the story that gave it an initial appeal, not to mention the unveiling of a medical procedure most people marveled over.

Still, at its heart, the Bobbitt case was a local story of domestic violence, extreme to be sure, but not as extreme -- nor ultimately as tragic -- as many that never get a mention in the national press.

That it involved sex, and that sex inarguably sells, should not have mattered in the weighing of this story's news value. And as an editor, it is hard for me to allot considerable news space to a story that I know will ultimately be defined by its treatment as a movie-of-the week.

The story angle I never accepted was Lorena's introduction as a model for neo-feminism, a movement constantly reinventing itself but one whose manifesto now apparently embraces mutilation as a retort to abuse.

Undoubtedly, there is some of that sentiment out there. There were partisans who waited outside the Virginia courthouse who demonstrated their devotion to Lorena by lifting two fingers into an apparent peace sign, then bringing them together in a chilling action of scissors.

Whether real or suggested, there was mention in the press of an organization called SCUM ... Society for Cutting Up Men.

Extending the logic here would prompt acceptance of Jeffrey Dahmer as an icon for carnivores' rights.

Of the women I know, most of whom are strong-willed and some of whom have probably been in abusive or sexually threatening situations, there are none who would be impressed by dismemberment as an act of feminist outrage.

And the few women who would believe such a thing are spooky to both genders, not just males.

Thus, if built on some feminist foundation, the basis for the sweeping national coverage of the Bobbitt trial is wobbly. That is written at the risk of going onto the ever-expanding roster of people whom feminists assert "don't get it." If there are people who insist the male sex organ is a weapon, they haven't been in the same locker rooms I've been in.

Elevating the story to such a tragic stage tended to soften the gray areas involved in the case, namely that neither John nor Lorena were particularly benign nor brain-strong. You can't find an angel in that family.

In fact, some who became so attracted to the story might have seen it as a proletarian version of Woody and Mia, their screwed-up lives on exhibit to ease our minds on those occasions we see our own families as dysfunctional.

When I see the Jerusalem Post has taken notice, I wonder if we made the wrong choice, if this newspaper should have given more day-to-day attention to the Bobbitts and their travails. Did their experience stand for something more grand than a felony assault. I doubt it. And there is a part of me that wishes I'd never heard of their sad lives.

Ken Newton is editor of the Southeast Missourian.