PBH Accidents Are Sensationalized

To The Editor

Suppose a local college newspaper ran three fallacious, sensationalized, irresponsible articles within one four-day period. Would that be sufficient cause to "fundamentally question" the newspaper's credibility? Most people wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the entire paper's staff was irresponsible and ineffective because of one isolated instance of poor reporting. Most would realize that in the daily operation of a large organization unfortunate accidents may occur. The two recent accidents involving Phillips Brooks House Association summer camps were such unfortunate accidents. However, the coverage of the accidents by The Crimson has been more unfortunate than either event.

I was driving the Harvard Shuttle Bus which malfunctioned on July 31, 1987, en route to Hudson, New Hampshire. The following is what occurred. As we were leaving the city, I began to notice an increasing heat on my right foot which was pressing down the gas pedal. At first I thought there was a malfunction in the foot heater, which all Shuttle Buses have, and which would have accounted for the heat in that one particular location. The heat increased to the point where I decided to pull the bus off the road and check it because it was becoming too hot for me to keep my foot on the gas pedal. In the process of negotiating the bus to the right lane of the highway and finding a shoulder suitable to pull over to, I increased my speed to 50 miles per hour. Then the bus began to lose power, and its speed fell back to 35 miles per hour. I knew there was a problem with the bus's engine at that point because of the loss of power; besides, it wasn't the first time a Harvard Shuttle has given out on me. I pulled the bus over to the shoulder. After deboarding, a junior counselor and I were looking at the bus. We thought it might have overheated; little wisps of what looked like steam were coming out of the hood. However, we didn't stand around to see what might happen, because we noticed something leaking from the bottom of the bus (we thought it was water). Returning to the rest of our group, who were several hundred yards down the highway behind the bus, we watched, as over the course of seven to 10 minutes, the white stream became a cloud of smoke, steadily increasing and turning black, until the fire in the engine finally became obvious. We all stood at a safe distance and watched as the bus quietly went up in smoke. Although potentially tragic, as any automotive malfunction is, no one in our group was ever harmed.

That's how I experienced the accident. However, my account is nothing like what's been reported in The Crimson. The headlines of the stories alone have been irresponsible: Sophia A. van Wingerden's August 4th article, "Passengers Escape; PBH Bus Aflame," and its inside blurb, "PBH Bus Bursts into Flames" are erroneous and sensational. Again, the same writer in August 7's issue wrote another story, entitled "University Has No Leads in PBH Shuttle Bus Fire," whose inside blurb read "PBH Van Explosion," To set the record straight, the bus which caught on fire last Friday was neither a PBHA vehicle nor did its passengers narrowly escape from it while it was aflame. Those of us unfortunate enough to have been on the faulty bus were fortunate to have enough time to calmly gather our things and walk away from the vehicle before the first unmistakable streams of smoke were evident.

Apparently the closest Crimson staffers have gotten to the facts of the accident is the Facilities and Maintenance Shuttle garage where J. Carter Vincent took a picture of the bus which looks infinitely more shocking now than when its last passengers left it. Both Ms. van Wingerden's articles, and the editorial piece, "Harvard, Have You Forgotten About PBH?" written by Jeffrey S. Nordhaus (August 7), contain numerous factual errors, which demonstrate the irresponsibility of The Crimson's reporting. In van Wingerden's articles she repeatedly gives the reader the impression that passengers only escaped from the bus seconds before it became a flaming inferno. Van Wingerden writes that "fire engulfed the vehicle" and it "burst into flames," both exaggerated descriptions that give a false impression of the danger the children were in. Van Wingerden's investigative techniques are also suspect. She reports on Friday, August 8, that I had yet to speak to Frank Rose about the accident. I spoke to Mr. Rose Wednesday, August 6, around one or two o'clock, a good 30 hours before The Crimson went to the presses Thursday night. Mr. Nordhaus's article is loaded with errors. He repeats Ms. van Wingerden's reference to "funny noises" coming from the engine, something which I have never said I heard. Nordhaus, in the same sensational tone of van Wingerden, writes in one instance that the bus "burst into flames" and in another that it "blew-up."

Van Wingerden writes that I have been unavailable for comment on the accident. Admittedly I went camping with a group of my girls Friday after the accident. But I returned to Boston Sunday morning, and since then I've yet to receive a call from Ms. van Wingerden or Mr. Nordhaus, nor has either left a number where I could reach them for comment.

It's extremely irritating to realize that the only time Harvard's oldest newspaper can find the space to comment of PBHA is when they print error-laden pieces of sensationalist trash. Nordhaus's editorial speaks of "serious mismanagement within the North Yard's PBH headquarters," but I really don't feel Nordhaus is in any position to comment on PBH. He obviously knows little of PBH's legal status or activities, and his comments on the Keylatch accident show how little he knows about summer day camps. The most serious injury suffered in the Keylatch van accident was a fractured collar bone, a common sports injury, not [as serious] an injury as Mr. Nordhaus might have you believe. Significantly, the overcrowding of children into the PBH van in the Keylatch accident was a clear violation of existing PBHA policy; it is not something condoned by PBHA. In any event, one child in the front seat of the van with a seat belt on could have struck the driver's arm in the very same manner as the child in the Keylatch accident did, and the bus probably would have still flipped over, overloaded or not. Overcrowding of vehicles is wrong, yet the accident could happen at any time to anyone, transporting others in automobiles.

In the opening paragraph of his article, Nordhaus insinuates that PBHA is full of uncontrolled college students that need the constant supervision of University officials to prevent them from wreaking havoc on the Greater Boston area. In fact, PBHA has over 30 responsibly run committees, each independently operated, that range from World Teach, which places individual from all over the world in Kenya to teach school children, to committees which shelter the homeless. I do not consider myself a "20-year-old with noble intentions," but someone who has spent a great deal of time at PBH during the last three years working with the homeless, counselling in an afterschool program, and directing, raising funds for, and counselling in a summer camp program for kids in Dorchester. In his 16th Baccaulaureate Address last June 9th President Bok told the Class of '87, "I have watched you teaching in the basements of housing projects and have never been so proud of Harvard." (Crimson, June 10, 1987) He did not say this because PBHA programs are mismanaged, but because he had made a site visit to Inner City Outreach last summer and had seen us tutoring in the basement recreation hall where we base our operations.

Inner City Outreach is just one of six independently operated summer programs under the PBHA umbrella. The safety record for these programs, if examined as a whole, is exceptionally good. Harvard students have been successfully running programs like mine for the last eight summers, serving close to 300 children, five days a week, eight hours a day, for eight weeks each summer. PBHA counselors drive children daily, and have driven thousands of children over the years, taking them practically anywhere, from foreign cities to local sites. The two recent accidents are the most serious we have ever experienced, and we still as yet haven't had one serious injury or fatality. This doesn't *** that we can afford to be lax about our driving policy, and we aren't. Nevertheless, our safety record points out that we do not suffer from the rampant mismanagement and irresponsibility Mr. Nordhaus would have you believe plagues us.

Nordhaus believes that PBHA's credibility is being "fundamentally questioned" because of the accidents. I don't believe this is true. All of PBHA's summer camp programs are currently operating, including Keylatch and my own. Friday, after our accident, the kids eagerly and willingly boarded another shuttle bus to return home. The parents we serve are equally supportive of our efforts. After we visited each home Friday to explain the accident, parents let their children get on another shuttle bus to go to the movie theater.

The children and parents in our program (like those in the Keylatch program) realized something The Crimson's reporters seem unable to accept: there is no way for a PBHA counselor to prevent every accident from occurring; we can only try to minimize their likelihood and the harm of their consequences. We are not all-powerful or infallible. The Crimson is the only paper which insists on belaboring the unfortunate accidents PBH has been involved in this summer, and their unwillingness to allow fellow students to do their work unscandalized is inexplicable. At a time when Oliver North is an American "hero" and Crimson reporters spend their summers at investment banking firms, I realize that many people sneer at public service. However, the summer programs which PBHA members run are effective, an effectiveness proven by the value placed upon them by the communities we serve. The accidents which have befallen Keylatch and Inner City Outreach are just that, accidents; they do not invalidate the work either committee has done or continues to do. In no way do they affect the work of PBH's other committees, summer of term-time. The Crimson's reporting on the incidents has been both irresponsible and inflammatory; if it continues it could be damaging to individual committees and PBH as a whole. The Crimson should concern itself more with ensuring its reporters follow basic journalistic rules and uphold its lagging standards. PBHA should be allowed to go about its business without harassment from "Harvard's oldest daily." Reporting news accurately is a public service; distorting it is a disservice.