COMM 207, 297, 317: Steve Lopez feature story in LA Times / READ IT

Steve Lopez of The Los Angeles Times is a reporter's reporter. You won't see him on the talking-head shows in Washington, D.C., and you won't read him pontificating about international relations. He's an old-fashioned get-out-and-talk-to-people reporter who wears out a lot of shoe leather, as the saying goes, finding human interest or feature stories.

Here's an anniversary story about a kid who was shot in a hate crime at a Jewish community center and how he's coping 10 years later.

I think it's a model of good day-to-day journalism. Lopez' lead puts you right there:

One bullet hit Ben Kadish in the hip and tore through his abdomen. Another crushed his thigh bone. He tried to crawl to a multipurpose room for cover, but his body wouldn't get him there.

He still didn't know he'd been shot.

How could a boy of 5 conceive of a world in which a stranger, filled with hate, would walk calmly into a community center filled with children and fire 70 rounds from a semiautomatic rifle, on a mission to kill Jews?

Kadish figured the loud noise and the commotion were part of a fire drill at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, but nothing seemed to make sense. He remembers lying on his back, gazing up and fading out.

Paramedic Todd Carb and his partner, Danny Jordan, plowed out of Fire Station 87 in Northridge with only sketchy information about a shooting. When they arrived at the community center and realized children were inside, they charged into the building before getting police clearance.

The smell of gunpowder was sharp. Shell casings littered the lobby. Jordan went to the aid of the receptionist who'd been shot; Carb heard a woman screaming and hustled down a hallway to where she knelt next to Ben Kadish. Carb knew instantly that the boy was gravely injured.

"Don't do that!" he ordered Ben, shaking him as the boy's eyes rolled back.

How can you not keep reading to see what happens next?

That's how you pace a narrative.

But mostly Lopez' story is very matter-of-fact, solidly based on interviews with the boy and the firefighter ... and observation, a lot of careful, watchful direct observation ... but mostly a quiet retelling of what his sources told him:

Today, as the 10-year anniversary of that rampage approaches, Ben Kadish is 15 and a solid 6 foot 3. He goes to movies, hangs at the mall with friends and will be a high school junior next month. He walks with a limp, but there is no other sign -- nothing physical, at least -- of the horror he endured on what had begun as a normal summer day.

Todd Carb is now in his 29th year of service, rolling under a wailing siren to rescue the sick and injured in a daily race against time. He's the guy you hope to never see; the guy who can't arrive fast enough when you need him. He does a job and moves on to the next, knowing the only way to survive is to not get involved, to not look back.

He's made an exception, though, with the call that came on the morning of Aug. 10, 1999. ...

I think I'd cut out an adjective or two. I use too many adjectives in my own writing, and I've learned to distrust them. But otherwise, hell, even with the adjectives, I think this story is just a model of good journalism. What Lopez saw. What he heard when he got the boy, his family and the firefighters talking. For the most part, very factual.

I tried to relate it to this week's assignments in our comm. classes, and I can't. But I think you should read it anyway. In ways I can't really explain very well but still feel strongly, it's what newspaper journalism is all about.