Have you all seen the Chron‘s special series titled The Butterfly and the Knife (the title alone is enough to make one cringe)? It’s an in-depth look at the gang melee and murder at Ervan Chew Park last June, and the Chron folks have decided to turn it into a tragic opera:
The Butterfly and the Knife Interactive: The story of Ashley Paige Benton and Gabriel Granillo told through narrated slideshows, video and more.
Narrated slideshows, video, and more! What more? How about a blog? Yessiree, there’s a Butterfly and Knife blog, written by four HISD students who “react to the series as it plays out.“
But it’s not a play and we know how it ends.
The truth is there are lessons to be learned from the events of that day; unfortunately, the Chronicle isn’t up to the task of discovering what they are.
UPDATE: Here’s an example of taking away the wrong lesson:
The schools are the ones who need to learn from this the most, if they can swallow their pride that is. Maybe then, will troubled students the ones that are in, Gabriel and Ashley’s position, can be given the proper attention, before anything significant occurs.
No. A big part of the problem we face today is that too much has already been handed off to schools! Parents have the most influence and the most responsibility — that’s where the focus needs to be. Parents need to get back to active parenting, instead of expecting schools to do the job.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS (12-10-2006): We wondered among ourselves if this particular Chron Eye was the brainchild of the Chronicle‘s erratic features editor Kyrie O’Connor. Reader Representative James Campbell seems to answer that question today:
As the reader surmised, our intention with the series was to provide perspective to a story that might have faded into the archives.
“We asked (Feldman and Peralta) to try to reconstruct the lives and events that propelled two young people into a moment in time,” said deputy managing editor Kyrie O’Connor. “It was a chance to take one compelling news story and get at the more complex story behind it and tell a tale of life in Houston as it is lived by people who aren’t normally the subject of in-depth writing … “
BLOGVERSATION: Slampo’s Place.
