To the editor:

The LHS girls’ basketball team won a thrilling game Friday, Jan. 25. The joy was cut short with the news of a player’s father’s death. The girls were devastated. The grief that the players, coaches, and parents were forced to deal with was exacerbated by your careless and callous coverage of the information surrounding that death. The information was not newsworthy.

However, when I opened the newspaper to read the coverage of an amazing game, I was horrified and saddened, for the Cochrane family, to see that in the second paragraph of a sports article you saw fit to discuss the events surrounding that death. You chose to print information that should have been kept private. I am angered at your irresponsible journalism.

I am sure that you will make the argument that the information was of public concern because the death occurred in a public place. However, to those who have compassion for the family, such an argument is unacceptable. The focus of the article should have been the success of the LHS girls’ basketball team. Our daughters have worked hard to reach the championship game. Instead of covering that success, you chose to direct the focus on a family’s loss. Shame on you. They need positive coverage of their positive changes.

I teach kindergarten. I teach my children “if you don’t want it done to you, don’t do it to someone else.” I wish that you could have honored that same ideal that my kindergartners are learning. I can bet my paycheck that if it were your father, your son, your daughter or your family member that you would have made a different decision and the same information would not have been “newsworthy.” You are welcome to come to my kindergarten class anytime so that you, along with my kindergartners, can learn some basic compassion such as “do unto other as you want them to do unto you.”

Maria Pope,

Lawrence