CHRISTINE ROBINSON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:00 am
Highlight despair, or show hope.
Reporters had an option when they reported on Matthew Shepard's death.
Those unfamiliar with Wyoming thought Laramie's landscape was the most barren they'd ever seen, and fitting for a crime like the one committed.
When they went outside of town - to the fence where Matthew Shepard was tied and left to die - some pointed their cameras farther outward toward the prairie to highlight the desolation. Others directed their lenses in the opposite direction, showing the lights from Laramie and a scene less bleak.
"I guess it depended on how you wanted it to look," Clara Tuma said. "Obviously it was desolate."
The Texas-based reporter covered the trials of Shepard's murderers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, for CourtTV, now truTV.
She, like many other reporters, had been to Wyoming before, and knew it was much more complex than the images of buck-and-rail fences, wind-swept plains and rough cowboys.
But to portray Laramie as more than a gun-slinging cow town was hard for some reporters, who clung to the cliched pictures that were often easier to use. As a result, Shepard's death confirmed parts of the nation's preconceived notions of Wyoming.
To other sections of the country, Wyoming's reaction to the brutal murder showed a state that wouldn't tolerate such a crime.
Ten years later, opinions vary on how the nation views Wyoming. When people hear Laramie, Wyo., they may still think of Shepard, often because of the play "The Laramie Project." When people hear Wyoming, some reporters say thoughts may first turn toward images of Yellowstone, oil wells or the country's vice president.
The cow town
Laramie was seen by many as an "incredibly violent, intolerant place," said Gwen Florio, a reporter who covered Shepard's murder for the Philadelphia Enquirer. Despite reporters' attempts to show the public Laramie was more complex than one brutal murder, the initial perceptions were still there.
Some reporters tried to give the public more nuanced information, more of the subtleties of the town and state.
But despite their best attempts, the little details weren't as initially intriguing as the murder.
"Somebody getting killed horrifically is much more attention grabbing than the subtleties of what this says about us and we don't feel that way. It's the shade of gray versus black and white," Florio said.
"This fits into a view we have of a violent rural area. It was just so sad."
The college town
Other reporters felt that if Shepard's death changed the national impression of Wyoming, it was for the better.
NBC News reporter Pete Williams covered Shepard's death and said the public's response, condemning the murder and supporting the 21-year-old's family, was overwhelming. So overwhelming, he thinks, that Wyoming gained a positive opinion from the public.
"There was an immediate public response," he said, referring to Casper, Laramie and Wyoming. "I remember flags were flown at half staff for two days, ribbons were flown outside of St. Anthony's School, the city passed an ordinance to ban protests around the churches, and there was a public statement from the mayor."
Also a Casper native, Williams said heinous acts of cruelty happen all over the world, not just Wyoming. The nation didn't view this as a reflection of Wyoming, or the attitude of the state.
Ten years later
Impressions of Wyoming after Shepard's death came mainly from generalizations, said Julie Cart, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who covered the murder and trial from the Times' Denver bureau.
"You parachute in, you are there 24 hours, you interview three people and you think you know in an interesting community what everyone thinks," she said.
Even though the murder was widely covered, Cart doesn't think the mark it left on Wyoming remains.
What does remain are those images of fences, wind and prairie - and, she said, of a grand landscape, horses and cattle.
Contact city reporter Christine Robinson at (307) 266-0639 or christine.robinson@trib.com.
What they remember
National reporters' impressions while covering Matthew Shepard's murder and the trial of his killers:
"In interviewing people from the gay community, one thing you heard over and over again was that Laramie reminded them of the towns they left to go to bigger communities where they could be open…
"The story was compelling because it was 'Anytown USA,' and he was really a typical young man. And people walked away with the sense that these types of awful things can and do happen anywhere.
"One thing I found is that Matthew Shepard's death became the bar by which everyone measures hate crimes."
- Rose Arce, who covered the murder while a producer for CBS News. She is now a senior producer for CNN and former vice president of the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association
"Something I was really conscious of while I was writing and reporting and feeling sad was that this part of the country I loved so much was going to be viewed this way, especially by my friends and family back home. They were convinced that I had moved to a crazy place."
- Gwen Florio, who covered the murder for the Philadelphia Enquirer and is now a city editor for the Missoulian in Missoula, Mont.
"I grew up in Casper, and I remember going out there for the funeral and standing there on Wolcott in front of St. Mark's, and it surprised me that suddenly - out of nowhere - came a woman who laid down some flowers, kind of an impromptu memorial site for him, and I was quite surprised by that.
"You see that happen elsewhere, and you think of that as something people do somewhere else, where there's a high-profile crime, people spontaneously appear to leave messages of memorial. To have that happen there in Casper, it surprised me. My hometown surprised me."
- Pete Williams, reflecting on an image he saw at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper, the location of Shepard's funeral. He covered Shepard's death for NBC News.
"It was amazing. The pictures the group had with them were so awful and the signs they had were so awful, and to think that the Shepards would walk past that, but then these angels showed up in these big angel wings and surrounded them and hid them. They surrounded them; they didn't engage with them.
"I remember some of the posters because they were so vicious and angry. They showed up with these big angel wings and didn't engage them, they just stood there."
- Clara Tuma, remembering when a group of people flocked to the Albany County Courthouse dressed in white to surround protesters led by the Kansas Rev. Fred Phelps. Tuma covered the trial of Shepard's murderers for CourtTV, now truTV, and currently works for an ABC affiliate in Austin, Texas.
"We were watching Tom Brokaw, and when he said the word Laramie, people gasped. They never thought they would hear that word on national TV.
"I remember I went to the Buckhorn [Bar], and my cell phone didn't work and the guy let me do a radio interview on his phone. I tried really hard to let people know this was a good community.
"James Byrd, that happened in June of that year, and people were almost primed around the issue of hate crimes. People had been paying attention to the issue for months."
- Cathy Renna, an activist with Gays & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders who went to Laramie to help work with media and the community. She now has her own independent public relations firm focusing on gay and lesbian issues. James Byrd was a black man dragged behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, by two self-described white supremacists.
"Journalists and non-journalists alike live our lives in pigeon-hole ideas. They are sometimes based on stereotypes and images we've had since childhood. There has been and will be an image and lore and an air of the West and 'cowboy country' and 'rugged individualism,' and all the terms we use to describe these parts.
"It doesn't describe life here, but until the notion of what the West is about gradually recedes and is replaced, there will always be commentators and reporters and communicators who might lean on the stereotype or cliche or easy image to describe something when it is more complex than that."
- Patrick O'Driscoll, who reported on Shepard's murder for USA Today from the newspaper's Denver bureau. He now works for the National Park Service.
"James Byrd, that happened in June of that year, and people were almost primed around the issue of hate crimes. People had been paying attention to the issue for months."
- Cathy Renna, an activist with Gays & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders who went to Laramie to help work with media and the community. She now has her own independent public relations firm focusing on gay and lesbian issues. James Byrd was a black man dragged behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, by two self-described white supremacists.
"Journalists and non-journalists alike live our lives in pigeon-hole ideas. They are sometimes based on stereotypes and images we've had since childhood. There has been and will be an image and lore and an air of the West and 'cowboy country' and 'rugged individualism,' and all the terms we use to describe these parts.
"It doesn't describe life here, but until the notion of what the West is about gradually recedes and is replaced, there will always be commentators and reporters and communicators who might lean on the stereotype or cliche or easy image to describe something when it is more complex than that."
- Patrick O'Driscoll, who reported on Shepard's murder for USA Today from the newspaper's Denver bureau. He now works for the National Park Service.]]>