A “failure of journalism” is what Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin calls media coverage of the death of Clayton Lockett in last week’s bungled Oklahoma execution, at the expense of his victim, Stephanie Neiman. Patinkin cites a front-page New York Times story that began, “As Clayton D. Lockett writhed and groaned…” Patinkin writes that he “was taken aback at the endless details about Clayton Lockett's death — and the lack of detail about why he was being put to death. Most of the articles — even the longer ones — usually had one quick sentence about a young woman he murdered.”
Patinkin recounts the story of Neiman, 19 in 1999 when she drove with a girlfriend to visit a man who lived with his 9-month-old daughter. They didn't know Lockett had just broken into that house with two accomplices. Lockett and the others had tied up the man and were beating him, saying he owed them money. Neiman also was beaten, and mouth was covered with duct tape. The men raped her friend and drive the adults and child to an isolated road. When Stephanie at first wouldn't agree not to call police later, Lockett shot her with a sawed-off shotgun. Patinkin doesn’t defend “what I agree was a botched execution. I just felt the coverage failed to paint a full picture of what Clayton Lockett did to get the death penalty. And I don't understand why journalism has given him a thousand times more sympathy than the innocent girl he tortured and murdered.”