Indianapolis Star gets wits scared out of it by ridiculous demonic possession story

Offered as an object lesson in reporting: This credulous Indianapolis Star story about the demonic possession of a family.

An editor for the Star promoted the piece on Twitter like this:

Delusion or demonic possession? You decide. http://t.co/jDtwLav31Q via @indystar

— Eric Dick (@IndyStarEric) January 26, 2014

No, no, no. That’s like saying “Earth — a planet revolving around the sun according to the laws of physics, or turtles all the way down? You decide.”

One of the readers who praised the story said:

I admire the care @IndyMarisaK took when reporting this story. Some great journalism and a fascinating read. http://t.co/TQgmVYVpYY

— Kirsten Clark (@kirstenlmclark) January 26, 2014

No, no, no. The story is an excellent example of a common trap journalists fall into when reporting on science, or the edges of science. The story talks to all the usual suspects sources — the family involved, the police, others who were already believers before they “witnessed” strange events. But none of those people seem to know anything about skeptical inquiry. Nor did the reporter quote anyone who might have experience debunking such nonsense. Instead, the story hangs on a bogus objectivity. No, journalists reporting the news should not allow their biases to affect their reporting. But respect for the truth is not a bias.

Consider some points where science was shunted aside because it had no one to speak up for it in the article:

Big black flies suddenly swarmed their screened-in porch in December, despite the winter chill.

We have only the family’s word for this. I’m not suggesting they were lying about something happening on that porch. But what exactly happened, and how unusual was it? The Star itself reported last October on the invasion of stink bugs — which, from personal experience, I can verify seem like big black flies when you spot them buzzing around. They’re all over the Midwest, moving into houses when the weather turns cold. Perhaps it might have been wise to run this invasion of the flies past the local extension service?

Campbell and Ammons also told The Star they reached out to two clairvoyants, who said the family’s home was besieged by more than 200 demons.

I wonder if those “clairvoyants” collected any money for this advice? The story doesn’t tell us.

Don’t be afraid; it’s just the Ghost of Scientific Fact, dead due to journalistic misfeasance. (Image by Kathy Kimpel via Flickr)

The family said demons possessed Ammons and her children, then ages 7, 9 and 12. The kids’ eyes bulged, evil smiles crossed their faces, and their voices deepened every time it happened, Campbell and Ammons said.

The story notes that several people, including health professionals, reported that the mother deeply believed in the supernatural and appeared to have impressed her feelings on her children. But those voices are quotes from official documents. The responsible professionals, who chose to respect the family’s privacy even if the family itself didn’t, are drowned out by the believers.

Campbell interrupted the interview [with a priest] to point out a flickering bathroom light.

The flickering stopped each time [the priest] walked over to investigate — which he attributed to a demonic presence.

Perhaps this priest can also make street lights turn off just by walking under them?

During the interview with Campbell, one of the [police] officer’s audio recorders malfunctioned, according to Austin and Hammond police records.

… Another officer recorded audio and, when he played it back later, heard an unknown voice whisper “hey,” according to Lake County police records.

That officer also took photos of the house. In one photo of the basement stairs, there was a cloudy white image in the upper right-hand corner. When an officer enlarged the photo, that cloud appeared to resemble a face, Lake County police records state. The enlargement also revealed a second, green image that police say looked like a female.

Austin said photos he snapped with his iPhone also seemed to have strange silhouettes in them. The radio in his police-issued Ford malfunctioned on the way home.

Later, Austin said the garage at his Gary home refused to open, even though the power was on everywhere else.

Austin said the driver’s seat in his personal 2005 Infiniti also started moving backward and forward on its own.

He said he had the car checked at a dealership, and the mechanic told him the motor on the driver’s seat was broken, which the mechanic said could have caused a distraction leading to an accident.

Oh, my. It’s a shame the one audio recorder malfunctioned; maybe that one would have confirmed that Paul is dead. As if a garage door failing to open wasn’t proof enough — when the AntiChrist comes, we’ll all be forced to park on the street! — a social worker reported an even worse string of events:

Ilic said she had a string of medical problems after visiting the home. A week after she visited the house for the last time, Ilic said she got third-degree burns from a motorcycle. Within 30 days, she also broke three ribs Jet Skiing, broke a hand when she hit a table, then broke an ankle running in flip-flops.

Yes, people who ride motorcycles and Jet Skis never get injured normally.

There’s so much more — like the priest who wants to do an exorcism, and his colleagues just tell him to look on the Internet for tips. Or how the priest then tells the family to look on the Internet themselves to find out exactly which demons are hounding them, so he can call them out by name. I couldn’t even type that with a straight face.

The story has the illusion of reporting, because the reporter talked to a lot of people and read many documents. But it’s not just volume that matters. When you’re reporting about something you don’t understand, don’t just stop with the people immediately involved. Look for outside experts, people who have dealt with this before. There’s an organization called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry that has much experience with these ridiculous “possession’ stories. You wouldn’t (I hope) report on a local guy’s invention of a perpetual motion machine without talking to real physicists. Don’t report on someone’s new diet breakthrough without running it past actual, educated, qualified nutritionists and physicians.

The story has the illusion of fairness, because it balances the outrageous claims of the believers against some quotes from official documents. But merely including skeptical comments isn’t balance; the weight given to the believers is much greater because we meet those people personally and we hear a lot more from them. And, again, it’s not “fairness” to try to strike a balance between scientific fact and myth.

No, the story never says demonic possession is real. But, please, read that story and then try to tell me it doesn’t give that impression. Up near the top of the story, there’s the obligatory bow to “this may not be true”:

Not everyone involved with the family was inclined to believe its incredible story. And many readers will find Ammons’ supernatural claims impossible to accept.

But, whatever the cause of the creepy occurrences that befell the family — whether they were seized by a systematic delusion or demonic possession — it led to one of the most unusual cases ever handled by the Department of Child Services.

If that’s what this story was really about — hey, these weird things happened when this family fooled itself into believing in demons — it should have been written in a much different way. In any case, it should have included more sources not directly involved in the events, and should have worked harder to give the evidence of delusion in the official documents more prominence. It is as unethical to report credulously on this as it is to pass along the “wisdom” of Deepak Chopra.

Journalists, don’t be afraid to admit that you’re out of your depth and need help explaining why some load of baloney is, indeed, baloney. Fairness in the pursuit of hooey is no virtue.