On February 16, 1993, in the Juvenile Court of Cook County, a frustrated judge pleaded for more information about the case before him. “Would somebody simply summarize what this case is about for me and give me an idea why you’re all agreeing to this before I approve it?” he said.
“I have never read a more upsetting police report,” says Ann Marie Lipinski, the new managing editor of the Tribune.
By the summer of 1994, stories blasting family preservation had appeared on ABC, CBS, and NPR, and in USA Today and Newsweek. Almost all had a Chicago dateline. By the time Newt Gingrich launched the great orphanage debate a few months later, most reporters were interested in only two options: foster care and orphanages. Family preservation was a nonstarter.
Diane Redleaf, supervisory attorney for the Children’s Rights Project of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, agrees. “Children don’t go home anymore in Cook County,” she says. (She is also a member of the advisory board of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.) “And everyone is treated like they’re Amanda Wallace.”
The Tribune left the impression that only the children of the brutally abusive or the hopelessly addicted are placed in foster care. And it left the impression that such placement ensures safety. Neither impression is correct.
By the Tribune’s count, “Killing Our Children” won ten major awards and was a finalist for a second Pulitzer. This brought massive national attention to the Tribune, including, Lipinski says, calls from “18 million reporters” asking about the project.
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Even on its face, it’s hard to see how this would force the return of Joseph Wallace to his mother. But the words actually can be found in a section of the Juvenile Court Act, which states: “The purpose of this Act is . . . to preserve and strengthen the minor’s family ties whenever possible, removing him or her from the custody of his or her parents only when his or her welfare or safety or the protection of the public cannot be adequately safeguarded without removal.” The emphasis is added.
