There was a lot of discussion in the Journal newsroom before and after the story on the women in a murder victim’s life appeared on page A7 of Thursday’s paper.

There was discussion on Wednesday about where it should run in the paper.

There was discussion on Thursday about whether it was a valuable story with wider implications in the community or whether it was the kind of story that would do little more than feed ugly stereotypes.

It was, in a very good way, a story that got us talking about the way we do what we do — and how well we connect with this place we cover.

The story was based on a news conference unlike any other news conference reporter Amanda Milkovits has attended. It was called by five women who all bore children by George Holland, who was stabbed to death on Saturday. Shanna Rufo, the woman charged with the murder, also had a child with Holland.

The headline was: “Five mothers of slaying victim’s children defend him.”

The five women were upset about the impression of Holland they thought was created in the original story Milkovits wrote about the murder. So they called the news conference.

Members of Holland’s family also showed up for the news conference. And they told of a man who loved his children and sold drugs to support them. He could get violent, but that was a normal part of the relationship, said one of the women. They said Holland made all of them — the women and the children — a family.

Holland bought his mother a flat-panel TV.

At one point, the women hugged and told Milkovits, in unison, “We love our baby mamas.”

Milkovits just let them tell their story, and some readers called to question why we would even put that story in the paper.

We put it in the paper because it’s an important story. It’s important because it tells of the way life is for a lot more people than those five women. It tells of life with few boundaries and fewer opportunities where drugs and sex and violence gain casual acceptance.

People can dismiss it, deride it, say it has nothing to do with them. But it is part of our modern mess. It is part of what we are. All the snickers, all the dumb jokes, all the spitting outrage are pointless.

One thing a newspaper does is take people where they wouldn’t go themselves and talk to people who wouldn’t be heard otherwise.

We did it here. A very good reporter provided us with a look at the way some people live.

You can call it a social train wreck, but you’d be applying standards that have no meaning in the place where George Holland lived.

You can also just ignore it. So much heavy, dreary stuff is just pushed aside these days. It just gets in the way. And these women are just so different.

Or you can take a look at what’s happening very close to home and consider what it all could mean just a few years down the road.

“This is the family of the victim and they want to talk about what he meant to them,” says Milkovits. “So the story matters.”

She makes no judgment. Others will do that.

“It’s important people see reality,” she says. “It’s important they look at those little kids and the violence they’re witnessing and growing up with.”

Of course you don’t have to look if you don’t want to.

bkerr@projo.com