EOTO #3 Edna Buchanan and the Miami Herald

The trailblazer I will be discussing today is the powerhouse crime reporter Edna Buchanan and her career and the Miami Herald. Edna Buchan was born in New Jersey in 1939. She was born to a working class mother and absent father. Her home life was difficult when her father left Edna and her family behind to live his life. She grew up with her mother, a working class woman who had a factory job making clothes. Edna followed her mother’s working path for a short time as a child when she was 11 and got a job working with her mother at a clothing factory. As Edna continued to grow, she took writing and journalism classes in New Jersey at Montclair State University, however she did not obtain a degree.

Edna would go on to get her first job with a local newspaper where she would work and hone her journalism skills. As Edna Buchanan’s career progressed she would go on to cover violent crime working hand in hand with the police at the Miami Herald. Throughout Edna’s career at the Miami Herald she reported on murders, homicides, and other earth shattering issues.

Edna’s signature writing style was captivating. An excerpt from the article Michigan Daily states "Edna Buchanan’s by-line on a story in the Miami Herald, especially if it was front-paged in the more leisurely Sunday paper, was soon a sign to readers that they could pour themselves a coffee, settle in a chair, and enter a world where jealousy, lust, or greed invariably led to a trail of mayhem and bodies. For Florida’s armchair thrill-seekers, Buchanan made sure the lip-smacking pleasures kicked in right at the top": “Bad things happen to the husbands of Widow Elkin.” began a 1985 story; “A 12-year-old schoolboy who had everything in the world executed his nine-year-old brother, then ambushed and shot to death.”

The captivating presence of Edna’s writings led to her longstanding commitment to journalism and crime reporting. For example, an excerpt from her novel The Corpse Had A Familiar Face stating “I cover crime for the Miami Herald…many of the corpses have familiar faces:cops and killers, politicians and prostitutes, doctors and lawyers. Some were my friends. This book is about them, about life and death in Miami-the place, the people, and the world of a police reporter in a city like no other.

Edna’s career was spent working for the Miami Beach Sun for a period of time as a main reporter. Edna worked in Miami and had a memorable career with the Miami Herald for eighteen years. She would later leave the Miami Herald to become an independent book author. Her most famous novel to date was the novel The Corpse Had A Familiar Face, as mentioned previously was later adapted into a movie which chronicled the life of Edna herself as a reporter. In summary, Edna Buchanan’s lasting career and impact and final legacy was winning the Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Award. She was a trailblazer for women in news and crime reporting as a field of journalism. 

Shock and Awe

The film Shock and Awe was a shocking film as the name ensues. The film portrays the real life events experienced by news reporters who covered the invasion in Iraq and war veterans who went to Iraq after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on US domestic soil looking for weapons of mass destruction. The Shock and Awe film tells the story of how the people of the US were lied to by major news outlets and subjected to false information surrounding the invasion in Iraq. The major focus of the film is the lack of transparency and lies that were told to the American people. 

Shock and Awe was a storytelling film that showed the importance of journalists telling the truth. The Knight Ridder's were the only news outlet that told the truth and gave the American people real information about the current events. The Knight Ridder's were experiencing pushback from their main news company, because they wanted to tell the truth. The film Shock and Awe highlights the importance of real life journalism, below I have attached snippets from the real life Knight Ridder journalists stating "I don't want to say [our reporting] brought me satisfaction. It didn't. Because we still invaded. The cost, in lives and money, is just astronomical and we're still paying for it. We're still paying for the consequences of this invasion," said Jonathan Landay, one of the reporters who led Knight Ridder's coverage on Iraq.

The important work that the Knight Ridder's did brought attention to the massive lying campaign that was being constructed by major news outlets all the while, small journalism corporations were telling the American people the truth and receiving backlash for it. As noted by one of the real-life Knight Ridder's by stating "That story got a lot of attention. We got angry emails from people saying we've given away the president's plans and put American lives at risk, which of course is ridiculous. I'm proud of that story," In short,the Knight Ridder's were a catalyst during the US’s decision to invade Iraq, because it kept the American people informed, and aware of what was going on during a very tumultuous time.