Last Sunday, The Boston Globe published a powerful front-page centerpiece story: “Dying on Lynda’s terms.”
It chronicled the story of Lynda Bluestein, a 76-year-old retired nurse who had terminal cancer. Unable to die by assisted suicide in her home state of Connecticut, Bluestein filed a lawsuit to be able to go to Vermont to have her life ended there. She died by assisted suicide on Jan. 4.
Noted columnist Kevin Cullen reported the Globe story, which features touching photos by Jessica Rinaldi, for months. It is well told — a heart-wrenching and impactful read.
But a controversy has arisen over whether or not Cullen crossed journalistic lines by becoming too personally involved in the story. The Globe published a rather detailed and lengthy editor’s note that admitted Cullen stepped outside of journalistic ethics, but also defended the publication of the piece.
Here’s what happened.
Last July, Cullen was reporting on Bluestein while she was meeting with the doctor who was going to help her end her life. The doctor explained that Vermont law required Bluestein to get signatures from two people who would say she was in a clear state of mind when she made her decision. Furthermore, the signatures could not be from family members, beneficiaries or anyone associated with the doctor’s clinic.
Cullen wrote in his story that Bluestein asked a “Globe columnist” and an unaffiliated documentarian who also was chronicling her story to sign the form. The “Globe columnist” clearly was Cullen. He signed the form.
And therein lies the issue. Cullen signed the form that helped Bluestein to proceed with the plan to end her life.
In the editor’s note that accompanied the story, Globe executive editor Nancy Barnes wrote that Cullen “regrets” his decision to sign Bluestein’s form, adding, “It is a violation of Globe standards for a reporter to insert themselves into a story they are covering. That it was intended primarily as a gesture of consideration and courtesy does not alter that it was out of bounds.”
Barnes then added, “After reviewing these details, we have concluded that this error did not meaningfully impact the outcome of this story — Bluestein died on Jan. 4 and she likely would have found another signatory in the months before then. For that reason, we chose to publish this powerful story, which includes exceptional photojournalism, while also sharing these details in full transparency.”
Journalistically, this is a no-brainer. The Globe and Cullen should have let Bluestein find another signatory.
I asked my colleague Kelly McBride, Poynter’s senior vice president and chair of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. McBride told me, “Wow. Talk about a conflict of interest. At the moment that Kevin signed that paper, his loyalties were divided. On the one hand, he wanted his story to progress. On the other hand, he was nudging it forward, directly intervening in the story so that it would progress. It would have been so much richer if he had kept his distance and documented her efforts to find a signer.
“And keep in mind,” McBride continued, “I'm not a purist on this. I’ve often argued that journalists shouldn’t be so rigid as to be cruel. Certainly they can offer sources in need food, water or other compassionate aid. While it might have made him uncomfortable, it was part of her journey and he should have had the patience to document it. Instead, he gave his readers a reason to question his loyalty. The subject of his story actually sued the state to gain the right to die there. Certainly she had the wherewithal to find independent acquaintances to attest to her mental well-being.”
The timing of the reporting and writing also might have played a role in the Globe’s decision to ultimately publish the story. Cullen signed Bluestein's document in July. But it’s believed that senior editors, including Barnes, weren’t aware of that fact until months later — when Cullen turned in his story after Bluestein’s death in January.
Perhaps if Cullen’s involvement had been discovered by the Globe at the time he signed the form, the story would not have proceeded. But we will never know. Through email, Cullen declined to comment.
Cullen is a big name in Boston media. He was a part of the Globe team that won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and part of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the Boston Marathon bombings. He has won numerous awards for his column writing. On the other hand, he was suspended for three months by the Globe in 2018 after a review found he fabricated details in comments he made publicly about the Boston Marathon bombings.
In an interview Tuesday, Barnes went beyond her editor’s note to explain the Globe’s decision to go forward with the story. She told me, “We considered the fact that Lynda and her family opened their homes to us, opened their lives, gave themselves to us for months on end, and trusted us with an incredible amount of access. So that weighed on us, too. … She trusted us to tell her story.”
Barnes continued, “In weighing all of these factors, we decided to share with the readers exactly what had happened, where the ethical boundaries were, the fact that we did weigh whether or not we could proceed with the story — I think that was clear from the note. We decided to share all of this with the readers, and trust the readers to weigh for themselves the value of the story and all of the complexities given what happened.”
Then Barnes said, “There was a human being here, who wanted her story told, and that was a fact that we wanted to take into consideration.”
Two things can be true at the same time: We can acknowledge that Cullen certainly crossed journalistic lines. He should not have signed the form. Even the Globe and Cullen don’t disagree.
But we can also acknowledge that Globe readers benefited from this compelling story and, more importantly, that it would have been a shame had the piece been dropped. The Globe essentially owed it to Bluestein and her family to publish their deeply personal story.
In the end, the decision by Barnes and the Globe to ultimately proceed with the story while being transparent about how it came together feels like the right one. It also should be noted that it was the Globe, through its editor’s note, that alerted readers to Cullen’s misstep.
Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that Cullen’s lapse in judgment is drawing more attention than what turned out to be an emotional, impactful and superb feature about a human being and the tragic, yet dignified final stages of her life.
