When Tragedy Calls: Not My Lemonade To Make

By Ann Bauer

The day after the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre, my phone began to ring.

The Huffington Post wanted me to do a live forum with autism experts and other mothers. Salon wanted my 2,000-word take on the shooter’s reported Asperger’s diagnosis. Elizabeth Cohen, chief medical correspondent at CNN, was wondering if we could talk on air.

For about two minutes, I felt excitement. I had arrived! A midlist author who writes quiet literary novels and fails, over and over, to seize media attention—I suddenly had the opportunity to get my name out, maybe even slip in the title of my latest book. Because that’s the rule in publishing, right? You use whatever platform you can find to promote your work.

Oh, so so wrong.

Because in the third minute—I was still holding the phone, mind you; Cohen’s familiar television voice echoing in my brain—I felt sick. And deeply ashamed. Twenty tiny children and six teachers were dead, along with a disturbed young man and his mother. This was not the time to market my book.

In advertising—which is my day job, the one that supports my quiet non-media hyped books—we have a rule against “piling on.” Here’s what it means. Say we’re sitting, seven of us from the agency, with the bigwigs and investors for some very important, multi-gazillion dollar company. A point is raised and two people from the agency speak to it. This is the time to be careful. Do notchime in unless you have something utterly new and enlightening to say. Because if you’re making a point that’s already been covered, if you’re talking just because you’re there and you want to be important, too? You’ll get fired on your way out the door.

What my agency knows — and regulates — is that wherever there’s power at stake, it’s human nature to want to be heard. In exciting, high-pressure situations, people draw attention to themselves even when they have no particular knowledge or wisdom. This is how embarrassing mistakes happen in client presentations. Worse, it’s how tragedies get commoditized, packaged and cheapened by writers like us.

True, we’re just following the lead of the media outlets that hire us — for increasingly smaller and smaller fees. We’re trained by the overworked publicists at our publishing houses that we must do anything, anything we can to make our names known. It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of coverage and feel like you’re the only one whose voice is missing. But there’s a price to piling on. At worst, you violate people suffering from something unspeakable by using it as a platform to sell your work. At best, you risk being a fool.

The reason people were calling me in the wake of the Newtown shootings was that back in 2009, I published a personal essay about violence and autism. That’s it. That’s the thread. When the Adam Lanza — the 20-year-old who murdered 27 people then shot himself — was revealed to be “on the spectrum,” I became an instant media expert on his motives. Only here’s the thing: I’m not.

And this is what I told the editors and PR people and correspondents who called. I don’t know this family, I don’t know this town. I have little understanding of the gun culture; I know even less about violent video games. This seems to be an incredibly complex situation involving divorce, school failure, mental illness, psychotropic medications, a lonely mother, a missing father, and one individual’s broken brain. I’m just not qualified to comment on that.

But over the next 48 hours, I watched myriad writers weigh in on the Newtown tragedy via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, in newspapers and on TV. Some of them I knew personally, many I knew only by name. Then there was the group I found most chilling: Writers I’d never heard of prior to their finding an angle on the tragedy and becoming instantly marketable.

The most specious example was a woman who wrote a blog post with the gonzo click-through headline, “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” It was she who eventually appeared on CNN, not with Elizabeth Cohen (who, like me, decided not to attach herself to the story) but with OutFront host Erin Burnett. Her blog stats went through the roof.

It was, I’ll admit, irksome. I sat in my lonely office, the phone no longer ringing. Writer friends I told looked startled that I let such an opportunity pass. A few were disappointed I hadn’t used the platform to defend individuals with autism. An editor I trust wrote to say she was sure I could contribute something unique to the conversation. So despite my initial conviction, I tried.

For eight hours one day, I wrestled with a piece about single mothering and autism, the perils of anti-psychotics, violence and the hormone levels of young men. My essay tilted from one fuzzy perspective to another. At the end of the day, I had a ragged piece of writing that contained nothing — except a lot of the same wondering, uncertain, histrionic and probably wrong suppositions that had been circulating for days.

I called my editor and said I was sorry. In fact, I had nothing to unique to say.

When Andrew Solomon’s “Anatomy of a Murder-Suicide” appeared in the New York Times on December 23, eight days after the massacre, I think I finally understood. His piece actually did enlighten, it contained something new and fresh told from the point of view of someone who was mournful but objective, whose authority on this issue was clear.

Six months later I’m terrifically relieved that I didn’t rush in. I suspect if I had, I’d be cringing over whatever self-serving words I spoke or wrote. It’s made me more aware of the risks of immediacy, especially for we who are always seeking to scratch the publishing itch. So in the spirit of the ad agency, I made my own set of “don’t pile on” rules.

Wait 24 hours to post and 48 hours to publish — Our ability to reach a wide audience through Facebook or vehicles such as the Huffington Post makes on-the-spot publishing too easy and dangerous. If it’s genuinely worth saying, it’ll be worth it in a day…or two.

Avoid the meta — God knows skewed analysis has been a great model for Slate.com, but a) they do it very well and b) about 75% of the time I’m still offended and/or turned off. Most of us don’t have the skills or resources to take a new angle on a hot topic—unless we’re willing to get dirty.

Don’t get dirty — It may feel good to write a cleverly snarky, salacious, or macabre headline in the moment, because people will click on it like screaming crazy. But remember, this is part of your legacy. Immediate gratification isn’t worth your reputation. Just don’t go there.

If you don’t have anything to say, STOP — This, believe it or not, is the toughest rule to follow. Because not having a clear, insightful position can make you (OK, me!) feel small and dumb. Let it happen. Think through. Examine what you know. If you have nothing new or illuminating to offer, close your laptop and go for a walk.

 

Ann Bauer is the author of two novels, The Forever Marriage and A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards, and co-author of the culinary memoir Damn Good Food.

Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Sun, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, ELLE Magazine and Salon.com.

She and her husband split their time between Boston and Minneapolis, where their three adult children reside.

You can find her online at annbauer.com or on Twitter @annbauerwriter.

 Originally appeared on Beyond the Margins May 29, 2013.