Dec. 19, 1996

Jan. 15, 1997

e first met Nöel Earley a year ago, after he telephoned The Journal-Bulletin seeking to publicize a bill that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide in Rhode Island.
      From the outset, he struck us as an interesting, articulate person, with a compelling story to tell. After our first article on him appeared, in March, we asked Nöel if we could chronicle his last days, and he readily agreed.
      We visited him intermittently during the spring and summer, and our involvement gradually became more intense in the fall; by December at least one of us was visiting him almost every day, sometimes staying for several hours.
      We believed -- and still believe -- that he truly intended to kill himself. But we were prepared for a variety of endings to this story: he could commit suicide; he could attempt suicide, and fail; he could die unexpectedly of natural causes; or he could take a slow, natural course toward death.
      Worried that our coverage might trap him into a suicide that he would otherwise reconsider, we repeatedly told Nöel that we would have a powerful story no matter how his life played out.
      Journalists try not to get personally involved with their subjects, in the interest of objectivity. We especially have a horror of becoming part of the story, rather than strictly observers. But it soon became clear that the mere fact of observing what was happening to Nöel inevitably affected what was happening to him.
      Certainly our involvement affected his relationships: his girlfriend, in particular, did not want to be part of the story, and initially resented our presence. We'd leave his apartment when we knew she was coming and when she showed up unexpectedly. Yet the fact that we were spending time with him heightened the tensions between the two; we agonized over that.
      But Nöel emphatically wanted us there, and he invited many other media people, as well. In the end, his girlfriend said she was glad we had been there to keep him company, and to keep her company on the day he died.

ver time, maintaining our journalistic distance became increasingly difficult, and seemed increasingly pointless. Initially we refused to help Nöel with such tasks as getting out of bed; we were there to observe how he managed, not to make it easier for him. But we were getting to know him and like him, and he was getting sicker.
      It would be absurd, for example, to refuse to hand Nöel his cigarette lighter when he dropped it. It soon seemed equally absurd to refuse to open his mail for him, or help his friend carry his wheelchair up the stairs. So we helped out if we happened to be there and someone asked. But we did not allow his friends to rely on us as caretakers.
      It was a precarious balance. We had become involved in this man's life as human beings: we were there to report a story, but we also provided companionship. In his last days we were among the small group of people who were with him almost constantly.
      Only by investing the time -- and the emotion -- crossing the usual journalistic boundaries, were we able to have the access we had, to be allowed inside at critical moments: to be welcomed among Nöel's friends, because we had, in fact, become his friends.

Felice J. Freyer, 41, has been The Providence Journal-Bulletin's medical writer since 1989, having joined the paper in 1982. A graduate of Hamilton College, she has reported on advances in medical care, the treatment of mental illness, doctor training and discipline, and the seismic changes in Rhode Island's health-care marketplace. Last year, she wrote a feature story on a state-prison treatment program for sex offenders. In 1992 the American Psychiatric Association gave her coverage of a woman's depression its annual Morse Award, for the nation's best newspaper story on a psychiatric issue. She is also a two-time winner, in 1991 and 1996, of the Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Communication from the New England chapter of the American Medical Writers Association, honoring her stories on premature infants and brain surgery.

John Freidah, 34, became a Providence Journal-Bulletin photographer in 1995, having worked as a staff photographer at The State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill.). A graduate in engineering physics of the Stevens Institute of Technology, he has often focused his lens on social issues, including a six-month documentary of an 8-year-old born addicted to drugs, an essay on children who set fires, and a series on truancy, for which he profiled a teenage girl for a year. He was recently named 1996 Region 1 (New England) Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association. In 1995 he was the Region 5 (Midwest) Photographer of the Year, and for three years running -- 1993 to 1995 -- the Illinois Photographers Association named him Illinois Photographer of the Year.

CREDITS

Journal-Bulletin staff:

Hilary Horton, editor; Thea Breite, photography director; Lynn Rognsvoog, designer

projo.com staff:

Paula Reynolds, producer; Eric Paul Meier, designer