New York Times columnist David Carr, who passed away at age 58 Thursday evening, was known to readers for his sharp, no-nonsense writings about the media world.
Carr’s unswerving sensibility also led him to the first big break of his career: a cover story about police brutality in Minneapolis, Minn.
In a June 2012 video interview with the website for media professionals, MediaBistro, Carr explained how he got his first story for the Twin Cities Reader, the weekly paper in his hometown of Minneapolis.
Carr, who was studying at the University of Minnesota at the time, got the tip from his father. His father’s friend Peter Trebtoske said he got beaten by Minneapolis police officers after he spoke up to them for roughing up a group of black men during an arrest.
Trebtoske ended up in an emergency room, with a swollen upper lip and a bone chip torn loose from his elbow. He was also charged with interfering with arrest and disorderly conduct.
“I said, ’that’s outrageous! Someone should do a story about that.‘ My dad, a really good guy, he said, ’I kind of thought that’s what your business was,'” Carr said in the interview.
Carr decided to dig deeper. He was going to investigate the incident and then pitch the story to the Twin Cities Reader editor, hoping to tell him, “I have this blockbuster story about state-sponsored violence and torture.”
Without any press credentials, Carr went to the police department’s records office and asked the officer at the desk for the involved officers’ past disciplinary records. It turned out the supervising officer at the scene of the arrest, Sgt. William Chaplain, had been disciplined for past incidents.
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