Compounding tragedy

The Fay family was waiting for their comatose daughter to expire this weekend when an anonymous person decided to add to their misery. Using an article posted on The Saratogian’s Web site, the nameless online denizen decided to weigh in on the situation.

“I hope she dies,” the poster wrote, clearly without thinking too much about the impact of those four seemingly innocuous words as they traveled through cyberspace.

Just a day earlier, 30-year-old Erin Fay was driving down Jones Road when she hit a patch of ice. Her Subaru Forester careened off the road, plowed through a snow bank and hit a tree. The young woman was mortally injured. Doctors indicated she was brain-dead and would never recover. The Fays made the gut-wrenching decision to remove her from life support so at least someone could benefit from her healthy organs –the gesture would extend nearly a half-dozen lives.

Meanwhile online, a battle was erupting. Police at the scene of Erin’s crash sensed the presence of alcohol and charged the woman with driving while intoxicated, long before anyone knew of her dire condition. The Saratogian rightfully reported the news they were given and the hot-button term sent ripples of rage through the paper’s online site.

Even when the Fay’s daughter finally died Saturday afternoon, online readers were viciously ripping each other. Some argued about the DWI laws. Some offered spiteful thanks that she only killed herself. Some argued that all the arguing was only twisting the rusted screws that had impaled those who knew and loved the girl.

Astoundingly, the battle raged on for nearly two days after the death. Finally on Monday, editors at the Saratogian put an end to what had clearly grown out of control. The comments section on the original article and two subsequent articles were disabled and the trolls that had besmirched an already tragic situation disappeared into the dark recesses of the Internet.

Those who knew Erin Fay describe her as an all-around amazing woman who seemed destined for success. She carried a stunning beauty and was outgoing. But in black in white and to those who see the world in similar absolutes, she was just another DWI; a faceless person that embodied everything that’s wrong today. Hopefully in wake of the tragedy, there are a handful of overzealous keyboard jockeys re-evaluating their outlook on life.

Tragedy is tragedy, and the still somewhat tight-knit community of Saratoga Springs has seen too much of over the past week. The larger lummox-like Times Union and Daily Gazette were just warming to the Fay story Tuesday when a body mysteriously appeared along the dog walk trail in the State Park.

Quickly, the word spread across the Internet. The Times Union took the brashest approach by labeling the death of a male in his “mid-20s” a “homicide.” Though the TU was technically correct in their terminology –police investigate any unattended death as a homicide –the term also seems closely linked to the concept of ‘murder’ in the CSI-crazed eye of the generally uninformed public. And it’s looking like this characterization couldn’t be further from the truth in the case of in 19-year-old Alex Carsky-Bush.

Fortunately for the Carsky-Bush family, the internet hasn’t erupted into a frenzy of rants and pontifications about the death of their son. But unlike the Fay family, they now have to deal with a number of front-page articles focusing on their loss. At this point, the death has become so public that it’ll get broad media attention if it does turn out to be a case where no criminal wrong is found.

Update: The TU went out on a limb Wednesday evening, claiming police had linked the deceased boy’s apparent overdose to a Oxycotin robbery at CVS in Wilton Monday. The bombshell was dropped, but then curiously and quickly removed from their online site within a couple of hours. There was no mention of the link in Thursday’s web or print edition. That didn’t stop the Saratogian from jumping on what the extremely fragile limb the TU mashed. They were the lone paper to have anything about the connection in print.

Were iSaratoga to lend its expert counsel, all papers would be advised to drop this story until something official is released. There’s no glory in scooping anyone on a story like this. Accuracy is far more important than timeliness when it comes to the needs of a grieving family and there’s no immenent threat to the community.

Sadly, police can usually determine with a good deal of accuracy the direction an investigation will turn within the first hours of a body being found. And the word is they already have in this case. But rather than ease the hyper-coverage of the media, they’ve kept things quiet. Now, the TU has a special ‘death investigation’ site that’s eagerly awaiting the autopsy results; the Saratogian, perhaps still stunned by how out-of-control their Fay story became, markedly downplayed their online coverage of the story Wednesday.

Like any new technology, the Internet has revolutionized human perceptions; the way we view ourselves and the way we view our peers. In a sense, the Web has depersonalized tragedy much in the same way that newspaper objectivity did back when people still bought them. The nearly instantaneous delivery of information has made pundits out of everyone and brought to the surface a new, grayer brand of callousness.

Police agencies continue to struggle with internet news. Just as they were learning to deal with newspapers, the Internet touched down. Now they seem inept when it comes to releasing all the information they have or none at all. For instance, it made little sense for the state police to charge Erin Fay with DWI, much less release this information to the Saratogian while her family was contemplating whether to take her off life support. Likewise, they would have certainly benefited from the police downplaying the death of Carsky-Bush, rather than baiting the media by calling it ‘suspicious.’

More in need of a manifesto are the free-wheeling anonymous legions of online media hounds. The advent of newspaper discussion sites first encouraged unfettered and unique discussions. These discussions can be enlightening and a good barometer for the issues that truly rile up a readership.

But they’re also giving birth to a new brand of callousness that seems to be replacing the now-stigmatized vitriol that swirled around issues of race, religion and sex. While you won’t catch too many of these righteous pseudo-pundits and quasi-trolls calling their targets ‘fag’ or ‘nigger,’ they won’t bat an eye about calling for someone’s death or worse, which can be just as hateful and sometimes even more hurtful that these slurs.

This is the ugly side of the First Amendment; the dark corner of free speech that shields and even promulgates shades of hate. Hopefully, a common ground can be found between all these elements before the courts and absolutests decide to stop the tide of free flowing information altogether. After all, free speech is a right that can quickly go up in smoke under the flames caused by its abuse.