David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published July 15, 2003

How do tragedies like these happen?

When I hear stories about young children dying in hot cars, I just shake my head. How does something like that happen? Before I had kids of my own, I found these stories shocking. Now that I'm a dad, they've become nothing short of mind-numbing.

If you flipped to page 4A looking for a lighthearted, fun-packed column, you've come to the wrong place. Check back next week. I'm ranting about something serious this week -- deadly serious.

TV news and newspapers have been reporting on a seemingly daily stream of child-death stories, a few of which have happened in Tennessee. A 22-month-old boy died after he was left in his mother's van earlier this month in Nashville. A 2-year-old girl suffered a similar fate a few days earlier in Memphis. Those are just two of the in-state cases this summer. If you perform a few seconds of Internet searching, you'll find a lengthy list of related tragedies across the country.

Again, I ask, how does something like that happen? The Memphis girl was overlooked by day-care workers who were ignoring state law regarding transportation and passenger checks. In the case of the Nashville boy, it was his own mother who forgot to take him into the day-care center where she worked. This isn't a wallet or purse or cell phone -- we're talking about offspring here. Have parents become so frazzled and overscheduled that it's now possible to be so profoundly absentminded?

Can someone explain that?

If you're like me, you're thinking the Nashville case might have another layer, a sinister layer. It's bad enough that an anonymous day-care worker who makes a few bucks more than minimum wage can forget a child in a car, but how can a parent? Maybe it was a honest mistake, but it's hard to fathom.

Sinister or not, you can bet the news media will keep us posted. That's what we do, after all, but I can't help wondering if these tragic stories might be the work of a phenomenon I call "summer of the shark" reporting. A few years ago there was a rash of media coverage of shark attacks. Remember that? It started with a death or two early in the summer, and by mid-July we were smack in the middle of the "summer of the shark." Certainly there were some legitimate shark-attack stories to cover that summer, but judging by the media feeding frenzy, you'd think America's coastal waters teeming ominous dorsal fins every 30 feet or so.

I know how the news game works. Newspaper editors and TV news producers aren't trying to be deceitful or sensational in their coverage, and they run with what the day gives them. Presenting the news is all about judgment -- judgments about content, relative importance and reader (or viewer) interest. When two or more similar tragedies happen within a few days of one another, a pattern emerges. Reporters like to point out patterns, whether they be children killed in tragic accidents or a handful of shark attacks. Patterns of unrelated, yet similar, tragedies are much more newsworthy than a single occurrence.

As a local example, take a look in the pages of the Crossville Chronicle. You won't get through too many issues without reading a front-page story about methamphetamines. It's not that the Chronicle is artificially pumping up the problem of meth production and addiction, but since meth has become such an epidemic in the area, each individual story is that much more important than if it were an individual, isolated instance. In and of themselves the individual stories wouldn't be quite so noteworthy, but when presented in the context of an ongoing issue, they have a more significant impact.

Reporting practices aside, two young children are dead. I can't get past that, and I can't understand it. When I search for answers, I know I'm going to come up empty. There is no "why." There are no answer that will satisfy me. They didn't have to die, not like that. What a waste, and what stupid, stupid mistakes.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.