Let me offer some tips to reporters who find themselves veering into religion-beat territory.
If you are writing a profile of someone at the heart of a major story and you learn that she was active in a Bible study, and members of this group decide to cooperate with you, you may want to pause and ask: (a) What have members of this group been studying recently? Why? (b) What scriptures were they studying during the events at the heart of the story you are reporting? (c) Do they now see connections between their discussions and the life of the person being profiled?
Let me stress: You are not asking them to violate confidences, in terms of what this person said or questions that she raised. You are asking them, as believers, for their own reflections.
The goal is not to sneak scripture into, well, the secular pages of The New York Times. You are simply acknowledging the proven fact that, for religious believers, scripture and prayer are crucial parts of how they make sense out whatever is happening in their lives.
In this case, we are talking about the coronavirus crisis and the chaotic early weeks of the pandemic in the emergency room at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. At the heart of that crisis was Dr. Lorna M. Breen, who committed suicide after suffering from COVID-19 and then displaying evidence that this still mysterious virus affected her mental health.
At a crucial point in the latest New York Times feature about Breen, there is this passage describing the first stage of the crisis, as the staff wrestled with a shortage of personal protective equipment and other needs.
Doctors and administrators were uneasy about the lack of space in the emergency department and pushed for converting other areas, such as a parking lot, where a tent could be erected.
“People I work with are so confused by all of the mixed messages and constantly changing instructions,” she wrote that day in a message to her Bible study group. “Would appreciate any prayers for safety, wisdom and trust.”
People who know little about modern New York City may be surprised to find out that it contains many thriving churches, with support networks deep into major institutions. In this case, Times readers eventually learn that Dr. Breen was part of a famous evangelical flock — Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
Let’s flash back to a GetReligion post in which I examined an earlier Times piece about Breen. I had a hunch, as I kept reading other sources about her life and work, that she was a Redeemer person. That Times piece called her “deeply religious,” but pretty much left things there:
The phrase “deeply religious” implies that someone linked to this woman’s life, in an interview, mentioned a church connection as a significant element of her life. … OK, I’ll ask: What was the name of her church or faith tradition?
She worked at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Was she by any chance part of a small mainline or large evangelical Presbyterian congregation? New York City has plenty of both, some of them internationally known — to the degree that they show up in the Times.
Click that hyperlink in the second paragraph and you will find the home page of Redeemer Presbyterian and its founding pastor, the Rev. Tim Keller (a famous author who is currently in the news as he fights cancer). Eventually, I did a podcast and follow-up post about Breen, noting how her family and friends kept using religious terms — “calling” and “vocation” — to describe her life and work.
Once again, all of this is linked to journalism basics. Thus, I wrote:
[Breen] was known for her above-and-beyond service to others. That’s the kind of characteristic that may or may not, in the eyes of her family and friends, have been linked to her life as a “deeply religious Christian.” How did this faith show up in the details of her life and schedule? Her public service as a volunteer to the elderly?
In other words, could this fact have led to a follow-up call or two? Did anyone ask about other people, a pastor perhaps, who could have addressed this part of her New York life?
With that in mind, let’s look to see if the Times team — which is so interested in ultimate truths, these days — connected some spiritual dots in its ambitious new feature. Readers are told it was based on interviews with “more than 50 family members, friends and current and former colleagues.”
The story ran with this double-decker headline:
‘I Couldn’t Do Anything’: The Virus and an E.R. Doctor’s Suicide
Dr. Lorna Breen was unflappable — until she faced a new enemy.
As you would expect, this feature does a stunning job of describing the challenges and horrors seen in that upper Manhattan emergency room.
This passage is long, but it’s typical of what readers will learn in this report:
Intubated patients on stretchers jammed the halls. Portable oxygen tanks operating at their highest capacity petered out at an alarming pace. An area meant for X-rays housed the bodies of those who had taken their final gasps while waiting to be saved.
One man, seemingly stable and about to be transferred to a different unit, was found dead in a chair, his skin blue.
The emergency department was clogged with about triple the number of patients it could normally accommodate. Outside, ambulances lined up as medics tried to get patients admitted. A new city policy that decreed patients had to be transported to the closest available hospital meant the Allen was flooded with people from Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, where some neighborhoods were hit particularly hard. The hospital was also ringed with nursing homes, adding to the backlog.
A hopelessness sickened the air.
I cannot stress this too much: This is not a bad story. In many ways it is a fine story. However, as we say here at GetReligion, this story is haunted by a religion ghost. It contains a faith-shaped hole — which is crucial, since the main theme of this story is the sense of hopelessness that accompanied the disease that struck down this remarkable woman of faith.
Again, there is tremendous depth in the reporting about Breen and her work. And in the midst of that, there is this reference:
“She had something that was a little bit different,” said her colleague and friend Dr. Barbara Lock, “and that was this optimism that her persistent efforts will save lives.”
As if to ensure relief from her intense job, Dr. Breen planned thrilling trips, joined a ski club, played cello in an orchestra, took her salsa classes and attended Redeemer Presbyterian, a church that attracted high-achieving professionals. Once a year, she gathered all her social circles at a party on her rooftop.
It’s clear that Redeemer friends and members of the Bible-study cooperated with this story — even to the point of sharing a few emails from inside that private circle, which continued meeting online..
There was plenty of potential here to have explored the spiritual elements of this story. Consider this reference:
On April 4, Dr. Breen spent about 15 hours at work, according to a colleague who recalled seeing her.
“Prayers to u Lorna,” a friend texted her. “Stay strong.”
“Hardest time of my life,” she replied. “Am trying to focus.”
The following day, she seemed confused and overwhelmed, said the colleague, who had never before seen Dr. Breen in such a state. Dr. Breen wrote a message to her Bible study group.
“I’m drowning right now — May be AWOL for a while,” she typed.
So what is my point here?
Early in the story, the Times team offers a summary of what made this woman unique. In a way, it is a statement about what the newsroom editors considered REAL in this woman’s life. This is a New York Times statement about who she was and what drove her to do the work that she did, in her emergency room and in her voluntary service to the elderly.
Dr. Breen was a consummate overachiever, one who directed her life with assurance.
When she graduated from medical school, she insisted on studying both emergency and internal medicine, although it meant a longer residency. She took up snowboarding, cello and salsa dancing as an adult. Once, after she had difficulty breathing at the beginning of a half-marathon, she finished the race, then headed to a hospital and diagnosed herself with pulmonary emboli — blood clots in the lungs that can be fatal.
In addition to managing a busy emergency department, she was in a dual degree master’s program at Cornell University.
Dr. Breen was gifted, confident, clever. Unflappable.
Let’s see. There seems to be something missing in that description.
Calling. Vocation. Prayers. Bible studies with friends. Service to others. Sacrifice. Intimate ties to one of America’s most famous churches.
Why not include the faith element in this poignant New York City story?