Journalism, at its best, is about telling stories that move us emotionally and intellectually. At its worst, journalism is shamelessly invasive and self-absorbed. Recently, the Oregonian launched a video diary of a woman living and dying with cancer. Clearly, this project firmly falls within the sphere of the former -- journalism at its best.
Rob Finch and Don Colburn have been documenting the life and inevitable demise of Lovelle Svart, a 57 year-old women, and retired Oregonian employee, living with cancer.
The series is called “Living to the End” and chronicles the thoughts of Svart as she moves toward the end of life after being notified by doctors that she may have less than six months to live. A dignified women of integrity and depth, this is a "Living to the End" is a story for our times – one that bears witness to our common fears and misconceptions about death and dying.
"Living to the End" is not a story about death -- it is a story of coming to terms with our all too short time here on earth. The Oregonian’s commitment to the story and Lovelle's strength, make this all too clear for us.
In the end, the message is crystalline -- cherish the living and the dying, make peace with yourself and others, strive to make intelligent choices in life and understand the fragile gift of our relationship with our earth.
Finch and Colburn work carefully to capture Lovelle’s insight on a subject that has often been regarded in American culture as taboo.
According to Finch, “In my opinion, the value of the story is not impacted by her decision to either take the lethal medicine or not. I hope it turns out to be a story about life – not about death. I have great hope that people will get to know Lovelle. She is really an amazing person to talk to – very smart and very kind.”
It takes a great deal of courage to walk, what some consider to be the voyeuristic or sensational line that has become the bane of today's mainstream popular media. This project is far from sensational or voyeuristic as it avoids exploitation and coercion at the core of its straight-forward narrative.
Finch comments:
“I am very interested in this form of storytelling. It is the first time that I will be able to tell the story of a journey. Usually we tell stories after they are over. That way we “get” the story and look back on the events to see what was meaningful. This time, we are committing to telling a story in progress. We know it will have an ending, and we kind of already know what the ending is…but how we get there is unknown.”
Death in our society is typically considered a private matter. It is not uncommon to keep our feeling about death to ourselves, yet when Oregon voters went to the polls in 1997, for the second time, they overwhelming supported a person’s right to make end of life decisions.
According to Oregon's Department of Human Services, The Death with Dignity Act “was a citizens’ initiative passed twice by Oregon voters. The first time was in a general election in November 1994 when it passed by a margin of 51% to 49%. An injunction delayed implementation of the Act until it was lifted on October 27, 1997. In November 1997, a measure was placed on the general election ballot to repeal the Act. Voters chose to retain the Act by a margin of 60% to 40%.
Ten years after the Act’s passage, Lovelle considers her final options under a law that continues to stir emotions and controversies. Throughout the series Lovelle does what many of us would be afraid to do – make her own very personal death and very public matter. Meanwhile, Rob documents the tribulations with sensitivity and grace.
The highest form of journalism is always about sacrifice, courage and social responsibility. “Living to the End” not only piques our curiosity about death but also challenges our consciousness about what it means to live.
Around the world, thousands to stories like Lovelle’s are played out each day. Yet, Lovelle story stands out because of its clarity.
In the late 1980s, I worked as a volunteer in a hospice that cared for hundreds of HIV-AIDS patients. A once clandestine operation, the hospice housed more than 124 souls, men and women, -- all struggling with different stages of the disease.
For six months, I put my camera down and assisted the living with dying. I never took a single image of anything or anyone while I volunteered there, and to this day I feel it was the best photojournalism education I could have given myself. During this time, I learned the art of compassionate listening and seeing. I learned to observe the human condition with empathic eyes. I learned to give and not take, to get over my fears of "otherness", and to understand how I could become a better photographer by simply being in a space with others as a human being first and a journalist second.
I put the camera down because at that time the media was running countless stories about people dying of AIDS. Yet, despite the abundance of AIDS stories, we rarely received deeper insight into what it is like to live before we died.
I also learned that with every act of taking a picture there is a price to pay emotionally and intellectually. As journalists we often rationalize our invasive actions as doing something meaningful or important for our readers without understanding that, as Annie Dillard writes in her book Holy the Firm, "Do we really need more victims to remind us that we're all victims?
At the hospice, I shaved, bathed, cooked, massaged, and read to those who requested accompaniment. I listened, nearly daily, to bittersweet stories of life's joys, sufferings and regrets. While witnessing more than 40 young men and a few women die of the disease during the course of my stay, I learned to put aside my mind's instinctively programmed judgments and embrace my brothers and sisters for who they were -- human beings on a journey. I learned to accept their often lonely deaths as I would someday begin to anticipate and accept my own.
As Finch suggests about his story with Lovelle, "In my opinion, the value of the story is not impacted by her decision to either take the lethal medicine or not. I hope it turns out to be a story about life - not about death. I have great hope that people will get to know Lovelle."
Getting to know Lovelle. Understanding a life shared with others as she comes to terms with the end of one journey and the beginning of another is a rare gift to be cherished and nurtured.
Not too long ago, a photographer in Kansas called me to ask if I would be willing to photograph a woman giving birth to a baby that would be still born or die shortly after birth. The woman had recently moved back to the West Coast from Kansas in order to be closer to her family after learning that the baby would die.
I called the woman and agreed to make pictures of the birth for her. My challenge was to record, with impartiality, a moment in this woman's life that might otherwise be forgotten. It was a strange request, but not unexpected. I understand the need for grieving. I understand how pictures can hurt us as much as they can heal and bring comfort. Toward the end of the second day of photographing, after the birth, I realized how important the pictures had become. I began to realize that there was a connection between this baby's birth and death and an experience our family had a few years earlier with a planned adoption. Shortly after the birth of the baby we had hoped to adopt, the baby died. We were at a great loss, but somehow having a visual record of the times we were together helped us get through it.
Perhaps this is what I see in Lovelle's story -- a way of making sense of things in a very special way. And there is one thing more -- silence. Often times we seemed programmed by the media to expect action and constant voice and sound in a narrative. We are programmed to believe that words (voice over) accompanying the images must always be present. But sometimes silence speaks much louder than words.
Silence speaks volumes. Lovelle, in the beautiful way she speaks about her life, must have times of meaningful silence to compose her thoughts. The image of Lovelle silently collecting her strength and courage to speak as she does about death and life is meaningful. Unfortunately, people often perceive silence as "dead air" or "dead space." Some think that silence is a waste of time. What is missed, however, by this sentiment is that in the space between the words and actions -- in the silence -- meanings are formed and hope springs forth.