Journalists could help the public “get” alcoholism if they would stop writing news stories backwards.
The “nobody gets it” story of the month:
The 26th paragraph of a Los Angeles Times story on the murder of Neal Williams and his two small sons by his wife, Manling Williams, of Rowland Heights, California, reported that a neighbor said Manling “was barefoot, wearing boxer shorts and smelled of alcohol” when she ran from her house screaming that her husband was hurt. The first 25 paragraphs reported on the impromptu memorial set up by caring neighbors, donations collected to pay for the three funerals, the charges against Manling (including special circumstances of multiple homicides and lying in wait), incriminating statements made by Manling to officers, incomplete autopsies with toxicology tests and descriptions of the Williamses as “happy and outgoing” and how normal their family seemed. Paragraphs 27 and 29 mentioned other neighbors saying that while the family seemed happy, Manling was sometimes heard yelling at her husband and at other times Neal yelling at her. The unfortunate fact is that this story is like so many others involving murder: alcoholic rage punctuates an otherwise idyllic family setting in suburbia, needlessly culminating in the death of a family. If stories like this began with, “Manling Williams ran from her house smelling of alcohol,” the odds that others will recognize addiction and intervene before tragedy happens might dramatically increase.