Call It What It Is.

The blog functions are working again.  Let's get to it.

The assignment sounded like a scene from a bad reform school or prison movie.

Yesterday I was working with Glen Walker.  We made a trip downtown to the LAUSD district offices to get their statement, then drove out to Taft High School in Woodland Hills.  Our story involved reports of Taft High School personel being reassigned while the school district and LAPD investigate a hazing incident.



The reports are treating the subject matter very delicately.  Students we talked to were a lot more graphic in their description of the incident and I'm thinking this is likely going to be called something more than "hazing" before all is said and done.

Hazing?



Wait.  I'm kind of angry and maybe I'm getting ahead of the facts.

It's often a good idea to maintain a bit of skepticism when talking to high school students about events that have happened on campus.



The gospel truth presented by high schoolers sometimes has a habit of getting filtered through the student grapevine and becomes quite a bit distorted.

"I saw the whole thing!"

"I can tell you what happened!"

"He wasn't even there.  I was there and I saw it!"

Working in news, we come across a lot of people (not all of them minors) who swear they were eyewitnesses to events.  I think people honestly believe we want a good story more than accurate facts.

I just want to have both, but I'll take the facts any day, thank you.



We had a hard time believing what we were being told yesterday.  Maybe I didn't want to believe it.

Hazing?

I'm hoping the story we were told is far less than accurate.  I hope the students and teachers involved all had better sense.

If the stories are true, I'm also hoping we can just start calling the incident something that reflects better what it actually was.  I certainly don't know what to call such a brutal horrific attack on a young student.

Hazing?

Really, it just doesn't seem like strong enough of a word.

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